


Of Duty and Patience

by Emmatyan



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-01-08 03:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emmatyan/pseuds/Emmatyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of a poor spinner and a town loony. And a brave ten-year-old knight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

**Author's Note:**

> I am wholeheartedly in love with this couple, and a wonderful story that arose in my mind just could not stay there. Perhaps it will allow you to stay for a few dozen pages with these wonderful characters, and for me to pour all that accumulated in my head.
> 
> Many thanks to my amazingly helpful betareader lizzietothet who corrected all the mistaked and made my writing presentable!

“Where have you been? Bae, I told you not to stray too far from the cart!”

Rumpelstiltskin put his hand on the boy's shoulder, sighing nervously. The sun had long been hidden behind the hills on the horizon, and he began to worry. Usually Bae was an obedient child, and if he was told to return before sunset, he always said goodbye to friends and returned to his father long before the last rays of sun slipped through the fields.

Today was market day, the first one after the spring floods, and Rumpelstiltskin brought to the city's shopping area a cart full of yarn, hoping to gain all that he did not get in the previous month. Morning trade was brisk and Bae barely had time to count out change to customers.

Trading in the city, they consistently sold more than back in their village, where many turned their noses up at their goods. Their yarn was not poorer quality than any others – they just did not like Rumpelstiltskin here. Nobody wanted to deal with a lame old pauper, being branded a village coward.

Finished with the greater part of the goods before lunch, Rumpelstiltskin and Bae bought a pair of soft, fragrant buns with cheese from a nearby tray. Today they could afford such a luxury, with the purse full of coins for the yarn they had sold. Having finished with his bun, Bae sat with hands folded on his knees by the cart, showing diligence with all his looks and tossing occasionally sly looks at his father.

“Let me guess: Oliver and Finley are here too?” Rumpelstiltskin suggested, leaning on a stick and rising up heavily from the log, on which they put their lunch.

“Yes! Oliver with his aunt at the other end of the row sell fabric and Finley recently came, his mother sent him to the pharmacist with herbs. Can I go play with them? If you do not mind, of course...”Bae smiled sheepishly.

“Go, but do not run away and come back before sunset, so that we won’t have to go home in the dark.” Rumpelstiltskin could not deny the boy, and his help was not needed anyway. He disheveled his hair, and turned to the came up buyer, eye tracking, as his son ran away to the end of the series, where a tall blond lad was waiting impatiently for him.

Bae always had been always loved by both children and adults. Despite the notoriety of his father, they all melted before the natural charm and sharp wit of ten year old boy.

Now he stood quietly in front of his father, his shoulders slumped dejectedly. Rumpelstiltskin frowned - had he feared a punishment? Why would he? He was never harsh with the boy, and his tardiness, though regrettable, did not cause big troubles. Together they took the handle of a considerably relieved cart and hurriedly drove along the road to the village, towards the house.

“If I knew half of a day of playing with your friends would make you so upset, I would not let you go with them.” Rumpelstiltskin smiled encouragingly, head cocked; trying to look into his son’s lowered face.

“Oliver is no longer my friend!” Bae said angrily. He sniffed irritably and pushed the cart even faster.

“You had a fight? What happened, son?”

Rumpelstiltskin had always encouraged Bae’s friendship with the village children, because in his own patient experience he knew how hard it is to go through life alone. Until now, he had never heard of a quarrel within the company of the three coevals, although Oliver grew up in a family of wealthy merchants and differed significantly by marital prosperity from the almost mendicant spinner’s family.

“Papa, I did not think that Oliver may be evil but his aunt, she is injurious! She drives the poor away from their threshold with a broom, but Oliver was my friend, not like that...”

“Did he hurt you, son?”

Rumpelstiltskin was afraid of this, afraid that people will turn away from his prodigious Bae because of his father, because he is not like everyone else.

“No, Papa, not me. But it would be better if it was me. I am a man; I can fight, if necessary, I will defend my name against all insults in a fair fight!” The boy lifted his chin proudly and continued with indignation. “He hit a girl! And she could not even defend herself, and there was no one to stand up for her. And neither could I, Papa, I'm sorry! I know, as a knight, I should have been there to protect the girl, but I couldn’t...”

Bae looked at his father, tears gleaming in his eyes, as if afraid that his Papa would scold him, that he would remind him of his duty to those who are weaker. But Rumpelstiltskin was silent. He was not the one to tell anyone about courage, no matter how much he wished for the opposite.

“What happened, Bae?”

“You know the town weirdo, who lives in a barn between a butcher’s and a chemist’s? You probably don’t, you don’t often leave the counter when we come here. She is off her rocker, she rarely speaks, when she does – they are very quiet, strange speeches, but most of the time she does not speak at all, keeps silent. As if she is sleeping with her eyes open. Here, people don’t like her, don’t talk to her, even though to me she seems nice. She's not ramp to people like that crazy old man at a fair last year, just sits there quietly, out of anybody’s way. Her eyes are beautiful. Blue...” Bae smiled with the last sentence. “I was looking at a canned eye in a glass jar at the apothecary, when I heard Oliver yelling something outside. Papa, they threw stones at the girl! Four town kids and Oliver with them. Heavy stones!“ 

Bae’s voice trembled with indignation and sympathy. He clenched his hands on the hilt of the trolley so that his knuckles turned white. 

“Her blood ran all over her face and her palms, she just shielded herself with her hands and that’s all. She did not run away, did not defend herself in any way, just sat there and rocked back and forth. They threw stones at her and yelled, called her names, called her obsessed, crazy and much worse! And adults, Papa, even the adults were doing nothing but giggle!”

Rumpelstiltskin’s heart sank when he imagined a poor orphan, even a mentally deficient one that had no one to protect her. He wouldn’t wish such a fate on anyone. For that, for saving his only child from that, he gave up a lot: his pride, health, respect of his wife.

“I'm sorry, Bae. Adults ... they, too, are unfair and heartless. What happened then?”

“The boys ran away, and Oliver with them. I ran to the girl and Finley with me, but Oliver said we were weaklings and we can’t even beat a nutty. He then ran back into town. Well, Finley is not like that. He offered to take her to the pharmacist’s, where he was relegated to sell his mother's herbs. He's such a funny old man, not a boring one, and he did not mind us bringing her to him. He said that this is not the first time, and he often finds her beaten, and helps her with her injuries. Father, I have never thought that Oliver could so brutally beat a defenseless person! I’ll never be anything like that! I will always help the weak, I will become a true knight!”

Bae stopped abruptly and grabbed the sleeve of the old cloak of Rumpelstiltskin’s, making him trip and run into the trolley.

“Papa! I have to start becoming a knight! I have to help her!“ Bae almost shouted, looking at his father with a challenge and a plea in his eyes. “Please?”

“Hush, hush, now the wolves will come running to your voice“ Rumpelstiltskin looked around nervously, eyeing the dark edge of the forest, impenetrable by an eye in the twilight, which their way into the village skirted “They’ll eat you up, and you will become not noble knight, but a hearty lunch. Do not run ahead of yourself, kid. If you want to help, you have to think of the way by yourself. What is the name of your damsel in distress?”

Rumpelstiltskin was not happy with the idea that Bae wanted to communicate with another outcast, besides his own father. But he could not bring himself to deny the boy in his good intentions, because this was what he wanted his Baelfire to grow up into – a strong, brave and just man. If it brings him joy, so be it.

“Belle, father. Her name is Belle.”


	2. The Gift of the Magi

Today Rumpelstiltskin yarded the sheep early to prepare for a pleasant event. Fate had been merciful to him - yesterday he had regained his work above and beyond and was going to come to his son today with a present.

 He went to the Dorothy’s house, a local healer. She was a plump woman with a mop of blond curls, always sticking out from under her cap. Finley was her younger son, and the older two were almost completely grown-up daughters. Rumpelstiltskin had always liked the complacent and risible widow who always warmly accepted his boy, and warmly treated him with chamomile and mint tea, when he came to take away his son overstayed to a late hour. Dorothy taught the boys literacy and numeracy, and talked about herbs and berries andof their useful properties. Though she was one of the most learned women in the village, she didn’t put herself above others, and seemed to have little notice of her own significance. Often her stories about the healing plants and habits of wild animals came down to tips for cooking tasty and nourishing soup or for proper carding of a cat.

 Rumpelstiltskin strode briskly to the solid, ivy-covered house where, according to his estimation, Bae and Finley have already finished the lesson today. Even better, he thought, throwing a straw hat, which protected him from a bright and unseasonably burning sun, off to his back. His gift will come in handy for the lesson and cannot be merely for entertainment, but also a teaching aid.

 Knocking on the low heavy door, he opened it with a force and plunged into a cloud of rough herb odors, which always prevailed in this house.

 “Come in, you’re just in time for a tea! And watch out, the children have counted today!“ A sonorous voice of a healer was heard from the kitchen doors.

 “Counted?” Rumpelstiltskin thought perplexedly, sneezed and almost fell on the floor right in the kitchen doorway. All over the floor lay the golden winter stocks of onions laid scattered. “Ah, so that is what the children have counted indeed” - Rumpelstiltskin chuckled to himself and then laughed aloud, noticing undistracted children on the floor, trapped in barricades of onion braids.

 “I stocked too much of this last year, and we are learning counting up to hundred.” Dorothy explained what was happening, sitting in a large wooden chair with knitting in her lap. “Today is the division. And so they were dividing.” She smiled cheerfully. “Have you brought what I asked?”

 “Oh yes, one moment.“ Rumpelstiltskin took out three skeins from his bag and tossed them to the healer.

 “Just in time, I've just ran out of thread.” The woman put two skeins into a basket next to her, the third on her lap and resumed her knitting, deftly combining the old thread and the new.

 Rumpelstiltskin was grateful for the fact that she took the boy to teach him literacy, and offered a payment, though a laughably low one, but Dorothy refused, saying that she does not care how many twinkies to teach - one or two. She agreed only on the yarn, which he had never forgotten to bring her now regularly.

 “Pa, we’re just going to gather the onions and I’ll be ready to go!” Bae’s voice rose from under the kitchen chair.

 Rumpelstiltskin sat on a chair, putting his staff beside him, and shifted the bag on his knees, feeling for his gift. He smiled to himself, knowing how much squealing will come up now.

 “Bae, I have a gift for you. Come over here.” Rumpelstiltskin’s hand beckoned his son, urging him to come closer.

 Bae's eyes widened and a happy smile spread over his face, like butter on a freshly baked pancake.

 “For me? Now? You mean right now?”

 “ Here you go, and treat it gently. I hope it will be not only interesting but also useful.” said Rumpelstiltskin and took from his bag a thin, worn but still a whole and solid book.

 “Papa ...” Bae’s face fell “Books are so expensive ... We can not afford it.” He repeated his father's words, which came out of his mouth so many times.

 “I bought it yesterday in the town, from a tatter’s tray, so it’s not as expensive as a new one. It seems like someone was fond of this book and used to read it often. Now it's yours, take care of it.”

 “What's it called?” asked Bae, taking the book from his father - his first ever book.

“You tell me” smiled the father “it's yours to read.”

 The cover was too clobbered to still keep its name, but the title page was unharmed.

 “Beauty and the Beast. The Tale.” Read the boy aloud.

 

 A month went by quickly. Bae was captured by his book, reading it in the evenings, examining the syllables, and daily he took it to Finley and Dorothy to read together. He read his most favorite lines to his father, each time stuttering less and less on the syllables.

 The book only strengthened his confidence in his future knighthood. Rumpelstiltskin had repeatedly served as a backdrop for a variety of games to his son when Finley was not around, time after time playing the role of Beauty's father, a farmer, the Beast, the horse. The latter role he liked the most – all he was required was to sleep, and the story of a wounded horse wrapped around him.

 Today he played the Beast. Bae stood there before him, waiting patiently. The Beast should be saying a thank-you speech dedicated to his rescue from the cruel peasants by this brave and noble knight Baelfire. Rumpelstiltskin swallowed his spoonful of porridge, sadly eyeing Bae’s plate, which had already cooled.

“Thank you, oh great knight. In gratitude, I give you ... this bride. Yes, I have a Beauty in my castle, so take her and live happily ever after, the end.” Rumpelstiltskin uttered his speech, copying silly gestures and manners of the noble.

  “No, Papa!” the boy begrudged “the Beauty should be your bride! After all she loved _you_ ; she discerned your beautiful soul through a terrible appearance!”

 Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. Bae often gave him the role of the monster, handing him a hand broom, which denoted a theoretical lady. It was the only “girl”, which he held in his hands since Milah had died. Late at the darkest nights he let the sweet thoughts of his new wife, a good girl who will take care of his Bae and let Rumpelstiltskin care for her, sneak into his head. By day he indignantly dispelled those thoughts, silly dreams of the impossible. But their last days Bae had never been tired to remind him that he had a bride.

 Honestly, thought Rumpelstiltskin, playing the role of Beauty was much easier.

“Tell me, my knight, shall you come with me tomorrow to the town? There’s not a lot of yearn this time, I can cope without you.”

 Bae immediately stopped swinging his sharpened stick, the sword, and sat on the bench, instantly gaining a decisive and focused look.

 “Yes, Papa, we have important business in the town in fact.”

 Rumpelstiltskin blinked uncomprehendingly.

 “This is… what is it?”

 “Belle! I made a promise to help her, remember? To become a knight for real, not for fun and to help her. Tomorrow I’m coming to town too.”

 “Now have you decided on how you will help your beauty?“ asked the father.

 “I know, Papa, I cannot bring her food or clothing or give her home, because we do not have anything extra ourselves. But I know that the most important gift is the one that is really dear to the heart.”

 “And what will you give her, son? - Rumpelstiltskin asked cautiously.”

 

“The most valuable thing I have, papa. My Book.”


	3. The Experience

This  market was not as successful as the last one for Rumpelstiltskin. Before lunch together with Bae they sold all the goods, but didn’t earn much and their purse didn’t get a lot heavier with coins. The man suspected that this time it will be empty long before the next trading day. Instead of fragrant loaves they had lunch taken from home, staling cakes and water.

 All day long Rumpelstiltskin was overcome with apprehension. He wasn’t pleased with the idea that today they’ll have to visit a poor orphan. As if in their own life  was not enough grief and misfortune. He tried to dissuade Bae from his decision for the whole day. He bought this gift for his son, for his treasure, and was immensely pleased to see how much joy it had given him the last month. Giving away a book, a real, hardly ever worn book in the hands of a girl, who was likely to not even know how to read? But Bae was adamant. He insisted that he must make the lady happy, and there was no other way. Only the most valuable thing to his heart could be this gift.

 After a modest lunch Bae led his father deep into the streets of the town. There were quite a lot of people walking around, but more of them, judging by the conversations of people scurrying nearby, were gathered at City Hall, because today the decree came from the Duke and the Mayor was going to announce it at the square.

 “That’s where she lives.”  Bae pointed to a small rickety shed, perched in the yard between the butcher and pharmacy.

 “Bae, are you sure you want to do this? Don’t you think you will miss your book?”

Rumpelstiltskin made the last attempt to dissuade him. Judging by the success of today's trade, it is unlikely he will be able to buy his son any more gifts for a long time. Revenue of the last month was just a fluke in a row of bad luck and misfortune, which was always surrounding his family.

 “Papa, I have already decided. It must be done”. Said the boy and walked resolutely along the path, overgrown with weeds between the two houses to the home of a town loony, looking for a presence of a living creature.

  A small barn, with old paint peeling from the walls, apparently once belonged  to the pharmacist, but the old man, thought Rumpelstiltskin, was unlikely to store even a shovel there. Holes in the roof were embedded with branches and roof tiles, the gaps between the boards in the walls allowed the wind to blow through the fragile housing. Rumpelstiltskin didn’t even want to imagine what it was like to spend the winter here.

 The door of the barn was open, hiding a girl, sitting on the doorstep. Bae stood before her.

 “Hey, Belle. Do you remember me?”

 Rumpelstiltskin peered round the door and looked at the occupant of the dwelling. Bae was looking at a girl with long, thick, but dull and matted hair, which had a couple of dead leaves stuck in it. The frail frame was dressed in coarse linen sleeveless dress that ended just below the knees, exposing knees and bare feet, gray with dust and covered with abrasions. She covered her shoulders with her palms, also covered with scratches, and a multicolored bruise adorned her cheek. Only one thing was bright and alive  - her shining, piercing blue eyes.

 “Hey sparrow” She cocked her head and stared at Baelfire. Releasing her shoulders, she put her hands on her knees with a gesture of a lady and smiled uncertainly. “Why have you come to me?”

 Rumpelstiltskin marveled, noticing that her fingers were feminine, and not childish. If she stood up, she would be not much higher than his son, and the sharp shoulders and sunken cheeks left the impression that she has not eaten for  a month. She could be mistaken for a child, if it wasn’t for a beautiful face that belonged to a grown-up woman. _If she was thoroughly washed_ , thought Rumpelstiltskin _fed well for a month or two, this ugly duckling would become a glorious beauty_. _What  monster could leave a little girl to grow in such conditions? Did she really have nobody?_ Pity squeezed his heart for the unfortunate creature. He moved forward unwittingly, unconsciously wanting to comfort her.

 Seeing him, she shuddered, shielded her face and hugged her knees to her chest. She made no sound and only panted quickly. Rumpelstiltskin froze in confusion.

 “She’s probably afraid of you, because she doesn’t know you ...” said Bae, frowning. “Belle, that's my Papa, he's not bad, he will not hurt you.”

 Rumpelstiltskin approached carefully, trying not to frighten the girl, and stopped, not knowing what to do next. He never had anything to do with the insane.

His eyes involuntarily rushed farther into the darkness of the room. Besides a bale of straw, bound with twine, tucked with and warm but holey woolen blanket, in the room there was a small box with a lid, served, apparently, as trunk for things and a dining table and a desk. Beyond the threshold there was a curtain, made of dried rowan berries strung on a thread. Some boards on the walls were covered with intricate patterns drawn with diluted chalk and some kind of dark paint. Probably, this was the hostess trying to make her home a little more beautiful and comfortable.

 The boy squatted down next to her and tried to gently take her hands from her face, looking into her eyes.

 “Don’t be afraid, please, we won’t hurt you, we’re here to help you ...” said Bae, awkwardly patting the girl’s hair. “We brought you a gift ...”

 Rumpelstiltskin was suddenly ashamed of their gift. Belle was obviously in need of a some food and some good-quality shoes, but not some stupid book.

 “A gift?” Belle was startled. “I love gifts. Gifts. Papa brought me gifts. Always brought gifts. Papa ...”She stumbled. “ No papa. You are a sparrow. What gift has a sparrow brought me? “She said softly but clearly, repeating the same words over and over again, staring dreamily through the boy.

 “Here you are! “ Bae took the book out of the bag and handed it to her, holding tight with both hands. The girl stared in disbelief at the thing. Bae awkwardly shifted his feet. He hoped to see more joy in the eyes of his lady.

 “This is a book, Belle. You've seen books before, haven’t you? You can read, can’t you...?”He asked her. Bae was disappointed; he did not want to think that the assumption of the father that the girl was illiterate may be true. But his pride would not have allowed him to take the gift back, so with a sigh he put the book in her lap and took a step back, vowing to listen to his father next time and bring her something useful.

 He was about to turn around and leave, proudly accepting the defeat from his own conscience.

 “This is me” She said, elongating the words, like a spell. “This is me. I Belle. I am Belle French. It turned back.”

 Belle held the book in her lap, opened on the flyleaf. Her slender fingers were buried in a corner of the page. Bae came up and looked over her finger. Two neat capital letters "B" and "F" were put in the corner of the page.

 “Are these your initials, Belle? Is French your nickname?” Bae could not believe the coincidence. How could her book get to him? How could she even own books? She was so poor, even poorer then his father and he and he had an only one book in his whole life. “Dad bought this book from a tatter, is it yours?”

 “Yes. No. My book.” Her blue eyes were focused on the book, eyebrows jumped up and a whirlwind of emotions ran across her face, while it was usually in a state of calm detachment. “It was my book; my father gave it to me. My book! Tale as old as time...” She drawled in a singsong voice. “And it's a gift? For me?”

 Belle stared at Bae with an incredible surprise.

 “Yes!”- Bae was glad to finally get the desired response from the girl and broke into a wide smile.

 “Thank you!” Belle jumped up and fell on her knees before the boy, embracing his form with her hands with all her strength. “Thank you, you brave little sparrow!”

 Bae beamed, hugging the woman back and trying to remove her auburn hair from the face while she laughed and repeated the words of gratefulness next to his left ear. _He was happy._ He still managed to please this lady who needed his help, and his gift was not in vain.

 Rumpelstiltskin stood next to him with the same silly smile on his face. He did not understand how on earth a useless stack of paper can bring so much joy, but still was immensely pleased to see the girl , a minute ago scorched like an animal in anticipation of a brutal attack, aglow with happiness and seeming a completely normal, healthy girl.

 “Milord?”

Rumpelstiltskin hardly guessed that Belle was now addressing him. _Healthy people_ he thought sadly _would hardly confuse me with a noble_.  “Yes child?”

 He knelt down on a healthy knee, leaning on a staff, so that she would not think him really was nobleman, before whom you have to kneel and kiss the hem of his garment. Though she was but a mad beggar, he would not allow Bae to think that it’s ok to look down to anybody.

 “Thank you,” she said softly and, releasing Bae, turned to Rumpelstiltskin and threw her arms around his neck. Her brown hair tickled his nose, but he froze, afraid to move and not knowing where to put his hands.

 “For ... for what? “- Rumpelstiltskin asked.

 “ For saving my book, of course!”  The girl said into his ear, burning him with her hot breath and causing a wild desire to sneeze.

 “Oh Dad, what are your hands for, hug her alright!” Bae burst into laughter. It never occurred to him, Rumpelstiltskin thought, that such blue-eyed creatures can cause a person to forget where you want to put your hands, moreover, how many of them you have.

 He put his hand on her waist, hidden behind the waterfall of tangled curls, and laughed. _He was happy._

  _She was happy._

She found the book, and, for some reason, this book was very important to her. For a moment the mind began to clear up, and hundreds of worlds in her mind faded, leaving bright only one, the one where she was holding that tale.

 She found good people. Somehow, these two men have done it for her, found her book, and now all was well. Nobody has been so kind to her, even the old pharmacist. She had to remember everything, voice, smell, touch, in order to never lose them in any of the worlds. The brave sparrow and the kind lord.


	4. The Proposal

On returning home, Rumpelstiltskin could not banish the thought of that strange scene which he had participated earlier that day. Bae continued to think of the ways of how the book could get from Belle to them and made up stories, one more incredible than the other, about her past. She could be a magical fairy that turned into a human for an offense, Bae inspiringly composed, pacing beside a cart. Or a beautiful princess, like one in his tale, stolen from home by a powerful sorcerer. Or maybe...

“So much romance, Bae” Rumpelstiltskin shook his head “It’s certainly much more primitive. Maybe she stole it from a noble lady, or from the master's children, and then sold it to the junkman. You’ve seen it yourself; she’d make a better use of the money, than of the book”.

“Papa, the next time I’ll bring her food. I do not know how, but I must. I’ll catch some fish in the lake, or a rabbit. Will you help me, Dad?”

“Of course, child” the father sighed, remembering with difficulty when was the last time they ate a rabbit. It seems it was the last birthday of Rumpelstiltskin. He never mentioned this day of the year, but somehow Bae always remembered, and brought him gifts. That year he began to learn how to do snares for rabbits in the month before the birthday, and the whole week he was setting them insistently and raced through the forest, in hope of booty. On his bithday, he proudly dragged a small young rabbit, jerking his long ears  in amazement and puckering his little black nose. Neither Rumpelstiltskin nor Bae had the heart to kill the bunny, and he lived with them for a week, until one night he was bitten on his paw by their old shepherd dog, rather of fright than of anger. Bae mourned the fate of the rabbit, even though he knew the outcome, and Rumpelstiltskin was happy, looking forward to a rich and delicious dinner with fine meat.

The sun was almost gone over the edge of the rolling plains when Rumpelstiltskin drove the last sheep into the barn and closed the gate, intending to take his son home from the lesson, rather than waiting until he decides to finally break away from the teacher’s explanations. When Dorothy was telling something interesting, the boys sat there, akin glued to the floor, and sometimes Rumpelstiltskin listened to her sensible explanations with pleasure himself. Dorothy was his neighbour for a long time, even before the war, where she lost her husband. She had never supported Mila in neglecting her spouse, repeatedly reminding that the duty of a wife is to be a man’s encouragement and support, and not condemnation. She knew what she was talking about. Her beloved husband died before seeing his youngest son, and though she had two older daughters, keeping the house alone was not easy, not to mention Milah, who would have been absolutely lost with a newborn baby, penniless and without any skills that would help her earn money. Dorothy herself had knowledge of medicinal herbs and ailing, that her father taught her, and she learned to read and write well, being in the service of a noble maiden in the town, where her father sent her, when she was a girl. Years later, Dorothy coped with the absence of a spouse, established her way of life, selling herbs in the city and took charge for treatment of peasants, lacking nothing.

Rumpelstiltskin hardly opened the gate of her yard when Bae ran towards him with his eyes burning, grabbed his arm and pulled the door open, hurrying the father.

“Hurry, Dad! Dorothy is telling cool things! About our lady!”

Rumpelstiltskin raised one brow and followed the boy, who was bouncing with impatience. Too often the fate began to collide him with the girl, which he had previously not heard a word of.

“Oh, Rumple, you old curmudgeon! Did you really refused to give the book?” a woman's voice sparkling with laughter, came from her usual place in a well-made wooden chair with a high back. In Dorothy’s kitchen there stood four unpaired, mismatched chairs: a small stool, painted with daisies, an elegant ottoman with wrought-iron legs, a large army stool and a light walnut chair, yet he himself, Rumpelstiltskin sadly recalled, had a single bad-nailed bench waiting for him a home.

“Bae, do you have to tell all to everybody? Why don’t you tell something good about me, and not expose me as some kind of a monster” - he chided his son half-heartedly.

“Come on, Dad, all ended well, didn’t it?” - Bae flashed with smile. “And Dorothy is telling us about Belle! You should hear it! Dorothy, tell us from the very beginning, please?”

“What, all over again?” - The healer moaned sadly, raising his hands to heavens. “Okay, so first comes first. Rumple, you pour yourself some tea and take a bun ...” – said Dorothy and vaguely waved toward the table somehow nervously.

Rumpelstiltskin took chamomile stool readily and poured himself a cup of tea with chamomile and mint. He laid the bun next to him on the table, trying to be polite but secretly intending to give for Bae to feast upon.

“So, my dears,”- the woman began her story again, looking at each of them in turn with a conspiratorial grin. “French, as you told me, Bae - it's not a nickname, it’s a family name.”

Children let out a sigh of awe, though they had heard it for the second time. No one in the village had any family names, because only gentlemen had it.

“She was born in a wealthy family of a merchant,” she continued “and was the youngest in the family. Her father and mother were no longer young, because apart from Belle, the youngest daughter, they had three sons and two daughters. They were good people and they truly loved their children. Her father often traveled the kingdom and brought strange gifts for his children? Which were objects of envy of the entire district. They were rich, oh, how rich they were! The father, Sir Maurice French, advanced in metal trading. He was buying large quantities of ore from the mountainous provinces and supplied almost the entire south of the kingdom. He had a forge and a lot of workers. He melted iron and other metals and made alloys strong, fit for gates or ploughs, or soft and shiny like gold, of which kettles and coins are made. Sir French was a clever man, but slightly erratic with his head in the clouds, I tell you. He, of course, invented some useful alloys, but more often he was making some completely useless and impractical inventions. Their estate was cluttered with creepy mechanisms, do believe me. I went in there once, because I served her mother as a child, heavens be merciful to her. Rumour has it he even wanted to go into alchemy. Maybe it was that that became his undoing."

“What's that?” Interrupting each other, boys fidgeted on a knitted rug by the chair of a healer.

“An explosion!” She exclaimed and waved her hands in the air. The boys were silent and hugged her knees, waiting to hear the continuation of the bloody and tragic story.

Rumpelstiltskin, puzzled, followed the story of Dorothy. It looked like Bae was right indeed, and a much more sad story of the ill-fated book was hiding in the darkness.

Dorothy’s dramatic pause came to an end, and she continued the story again.

“Apparently, some ghastly experiment went wrong in his workshop, and a terrible explosion thundered, which was heard in all the neighbouring villages. Cattle from nearby fields run up so that it took very long to the farmers to gather again sheep and goats, which were lost in forests and many of them eaten by wolves. So, when people got to the place, the whole house was in ruins. And a terrifying black smoke billowed over it. All the family and servants were dead, everyone who was in the house. People did not want to approach the terrible place, but after a couple of days those hunting for profit were already scouring the ruins. Then she was found. She was twelve, as I recall. How she survived is unclear. Probably she wasn’t in the house and walked in the garden.

Quite undamaged she was, only her mind was corrupted since. When they found her, she was sitting by the corpses of her father and elder brother, half sticking out of the ruins. She sat there and rocked. This is how she was after that. Sometimes she seems to be waking up, says something, but still very little sanity remains in her. She lived in a shelter for a couple of years until she was pushed out as she came of age at sixteen. Since then, she lives on the streets, here and there. She performs artless tasks for a butcher and a pharmacist when and gets food for her work. Few people know her story. This is the story of her life. And your book, Bae, was probably found by looters and sold. The End. And now, little boys, go and get an apple from the cellar, but quickly before I change my mind!” Dorothy waved her hands, driving children into the cellar ."

“And now I need to talk to you, Rumple”.

Dorothy turned to Rumpelstiltskin, who was thoughtfully pinching off small pieces from the bun in his lap, with a serious and anxious expression. The man choked, transfixed. Close attention to his person always meant some trouble. Did Dorothy want to give up the lessons with his son?

“You were in the town. Have you heard about the decree?” She asked him.

Rumpelstiltskin shook his head. He forgot to ask, what the matter was, discouraged by unexpected emotions from meeting the town loony.

“Well, you’d better have. It will most likely affect you too.” the worried woman told him. “Duke sent out decree telling that all widows and unmarried girls should choose a groom to marry before the first day of summer. Those, it says, who can not choose by themselves, should apply to the head, which will pick a spouse on the list.”

“Why?” Rumpelstiltskin asked in amazement. ”Did they get in somebody’s way, widows and virgins?

“Can’t you see?” answered Dorothy, arrows of anger flashing in her eyes. “After the war, there are few of the people left, and soon a new war is coming. New soldiers are needed.”

The healer frowned and crossed her arms. “They always find a way to cause trouble to common people” , thought Rumpelstiltskin bitterly.

“I don’t need that” she continued  “And that's what I’m thinking of, Rumple - marry me.”

Rumpelstiltskin smiled uncertainly, thinking that he missed where to laugh. But Dorothy looked at him resolutely and without a shadow of a smile. His eyebrows went up when he realized that she was not joking.

“Me? ...You? ... Dorothy, I'm ...” Rumpelstiltskin shook his head dumbfounded, his long dark hair falling over his eyes, staring blankly at the floor. “It makes no sense.”

“But why , I already thought of everything” the hostess started to explain readily. “I do not need a random husband – an idler, a drunkard, who will beat me and my children. I didn’t build my house to have another man with his greedy hands in here. You are a muddle-headed man, but a decent one, and my children know you. Together we can have a better living. Soon the girls will get married too; they have grooms already waiting. It means that there will be a room for you and Baelfire. You’ll sell your shack. Well?” Dorothy tilted her head questioningly. “What do you say?”

“Dorothy? It’s just ... well ... you cannot just ...” Rumpelstiltskin hesitated, not knowing what to say. His secret dreams about new wife included anyone, but not his old neighbour, a few years older than him. “And what about ... well ...” he stumbled again, unable to express his idea of what should be there between spouses.

“Love? What are you talking, Rumple? My love died long ago, somewhere in the mud of the battlefield.” Dorothy’s voice was low and bitter. “We have children to love. And we're certainly not handsome, but not too disgusting to look at, we’ll reconcile, become friends. And if you decide to beat me up, I’ll take your stick away!” the woman laughed, shaking her small curls, sticking out from under the bonnet.” Rumple, have you over read the boy’s fairy tale? Who can ever be able to love people like us?”

Rumpelstiltskin could not sleep that night, tossing and turning against the wall on an old mattress stuffed with straw. He rubbed his nose, eyes shut , anticipating an approaching headache. Dorothy’s offer took him by surprise and filled him with a sense of doom. All the arguments seemed so logical, compelling, right, coming from his reasonable neighbour, and he could find no reasons to disagree. Most importantly, his son would be better there in a squatty warm house, in a company of not merely a good-for-nothing father, but wise and nice stepmother and half-brothers and sisters.

But Rumpelstiltskin felt, nay, knew it will break his hart into pieces. No matter how much he denied it in the dispute with Dorothy and himself, that he does not expect to meet his “true love”, yet it would mean the end of any, even the most chimerical dream. What Dorothy offered was practical and reasonable union, deal, not burdened by feelings, promising no "love" or affection in return - just a better chance for the children. Even in his unhappy marriage with Mila there was some kind of love, even if only from his side.

Dorothy warmly hugged him goodbye, clapping on his back, tossing a cloud of flour, which remained stuck to the hands of the hostess.

Rumpelstiltskin could not stop recalling again and again a gentle, affectionate hug of a blue-eyed girl and a quiet whisper tickling his cheek.


	5. Only God Knows

Everything was decided and Rumpelstiltskin had no doubt of the correctness of the decision, resigning himself to the overtaking fate. The children still didn’t suspect anything, and the man imagined the amount of squealing when Bae found out that Finley and he would become brothers. So far, everything was going well. Their plans, which they built with Dorothy nightly in her kitchen, lit by a crackling fire of a hearth, promised a peaceful future in prosperity and warmth.

       Dorothy’s elder girls, Martha and Bertha, were getting married on the same spring day, without waiting for the scheduled day in summer. They had their mother’s fair silvery hair and light gray, kind eyes. With their figures, they took after their father - both tall, slender, strong. Rumpelstiltskin and Bae, along with a small crowd of villagers, saw the girls off into the town, where the ceremony would hosted in the Town Hall. Bae was looking forward to the brides coming out of their parent’s house, dressed in the similar clothes that he and Finlay had already spied yesterday through the open door to their room.

       There came two girls in their wedding clothes, smiling cheerfully, as was their mother, popping out from behind them. If they had been more prosperous they’d have sewn the clothing for the wedding occasion entirely, dresses of flowing red silk, with a muslin collar with silver belts, and a pearl diadem and shoes on their feet. But this was a luxury they couldn’t afford, so the dresses were simple but skillfully sewn, finished in a hurry, although started a long time ago. The girls were wearing thin cotton shirts with long sleeves, embroidered at the neck and sleeves in red flowers. Red tunics of fine wool, embroidered with floral patterns on the edges. The girls wore their hair loose; it was traditionally plaited in the evening by the mother and covered with a shawl as a sign of saying farewell to girlhood. It was adorned by only a single decoration – thin, satin golden ribbons.

 The girls cordially welcomed neighboring villagers at the gate, while the mother was for the last time rearranging decorations on the wagon - the branches of a flowering wild jasmine bush, strapped to the front. She winked to Bae. It was his gift. Last week he noticed a beautiful bush to the east of the lake, and today at dawn he dragged full armfuls of dizzyingly smelling branches to bind to the vehicle that will carry the young to the priest. The deuce, borrowed for a day, was also adorned with flowers - the fluffy wreaths of leaves, one of which was being savored with gusto by a horse quite unaware of the importance of the moment.

       Two young men were standing at the cart, with admiration peeking out for their brides in a small crowd and quite clearly worried. They were the fine lads, for girls’ luck,- a junior clerk of the city council, a slender young man with delicate features and close-cropped blond hair, and a broad-shouldered, tall guy with an aquiline nose, a son of a farmer, who held a great herd of prize-winning cows.

        _May God grant them happiness_ , Rumpelstiltskin thought, as he watched the retreating wagon. He remembered the perfectly indistinguishable Martha and Bertha since childhood, when they agreed to watch over his son.

       Dorothy called him to join on the festivities, which were to begin at sundown. Baelfire was so happy to attend a dance for the first time that Rumpelstiltskin could not refuse him, even though he felt uncomfortable with the large number of people - he immediately wanted to hide from sideward glances out into the shadows and wait until it was over.

       His wedding with Dorothy was to take place quietly.  The only difference from an ordinary day would be in a  first ever family dinner with a large , ruddy goose the woman intended to roast. _That’s what his wedding will be like_.

  

      Rumpelstiltskin, almost invisible in the twilight shadows, sat with his staff on his knees on a log at the edge of the clearing by the lake, in the middle of which a cheerful fire was burning. Lively conversations, screams, laughter echoed throughout the forest. Dorothy has rolled out a whole barrel of her best wine, and the guests poured themselves cupfuls to drink for the health of the newlyweds. Someone brought a bagpipe and invited the people to the fire for the dance. Rural dance, unlike the noble’s, lacked movements rehearsed for centuries, clear structure and steps, but it was possible to spin, jump and hop in the dance in a roundelay, in pairs or singly, each one in his own way, celebrating the freedom of one’s soul. Rumpelstiltskin watched as the young brides danced with their husbands, hand in hand, looking merrily at each other with eyes drunk with wine and happiness, as Bae, arms outstretched, circled in place with the music, as Dorothy , inflating her cheeks, danced intricately arm in arm with gray mustached guest. Returning from the town, she told him to go there again this week to write them down into the ledger as ones willing to get married on the first day of summer, because she, as a woman, could not do it.

       “Bertha, wait, where are you going” He heard in the distance behind him a hoarse male voice.

       “What? Oh, I want to ask Rumpelstiltskin to dance, I don’t like him sitting all alone there at my wedding” a merry girlish voice replied.

       “What are you thinking? Forget it. Your mother was foolish enough to call him, and now you too. It's _Rumpelstiltskin_ , we do not need him at our celebration. I wish he were _dead_ already, he is the rot in our fine village. Now, when you're my wife, I will not let you rub shoulders with that rabble. Come back.”

       Rumpelstiltskin turned away from the flames of the fire, staring at the sparkling glow of the fire and the moon on the surface of the lake. Bertha and her blond husband rejoined the general merriment, celebrating their sacred union.

 

       “This is my new gift. Here, you’ll give it yourself.”  A happy Bae gave him a hand with a golden ribbon lying in it.

       Rumpelstiltskin recognized the same one that adorned the young bride’s hair recently.

       “Where did you get that?” he asked. “Bae, you do know that you cannot take someone else’s things?”

       “Father!” the offended boy cried out. “How could you think of me like that? I traded it!”

       “For what?” Rumpelstiltskin asked cautiously, furtively examining their modest home, looking for a missing thing.

       “For a rabbit!”  explained Bae proudly. “I caught a large rabbit in the woods with the snare, and traded it with Bertha for the ribbon. Isn’t it beautiful?”

       “Who?”  the father asked,  barely audible, he was distracted by visualizing a whole roasted rabbit.

       “Well, the ribbon, duh. Belle’s hair is so big and gets everywhere and she could tie it with this thing. I know she’s going to like it, she’s a girl, girls like ribbons and stuff.”

      “Oh ... Bae” the father sighed. The boy had definitely pursued a high and noble goal, but he had his head in the clouds when it came to his "lady in distress". Handing a ribbon to a hungry girl instead of the rabbit it was traded for? Rumpelstiltskin shook his head, not daring to lower him down to earth. “Fine, son, I'll take it to her.”

 

…

    

  Today he went to the town again to register in line for marriage. The gold ribbon, neatly folded in order not to get wrinkled, resting in his pocket. First he decided to go to Belle, anticipating handing her a gift. Maybe she will be grateful to him again, and once more he will manage to steal a few moments of a gentle touch and human warmth.

       The more time passed after Bae’s birth, since Mila ceased to touch him except by necessity, the more he missed this, the feeling of silky skin under his fingers and soft feminine arms. Eventually it turned into a constant hunger, almost itching, which increased even more after meeting the freaky girl. In his mind he understood that all such thoughts should be banned, kicked out of his mind, because his duty was to be faithful to his wife, but his legs just carried him through the city to the poor hovel of a crazy lady.

       The door stood wide open, and the shed was empty. A pin of disappointment pierced Rumpelstiltskin - he did not think he would not find her on the spot. Why did she leave the door unlocked? He looked inside. Everything remained the same as almost a month ago. Only her curtain of rowan was lying on the floor, half- ragged, shriveled berries scattered across the floor.

       Deciding to return again on his way back, Rumpelstiltskin walked his way to the town hall.

 In front of a gray, high stone building with a tower there was a crowd. Brides and grooms lined up by the side entrance, looking nervous and tired from a long standing and the first summer heat that warmed the cobblestones. High casement doors of the main entrance were wide open, and the crowd cheered newlyweds emerging from the door, forming a corridor of happy guests of couples, and onlookers, and beggars, hoping to get a coin “for good luck” or at least a goblet of wine.

       _What a busy day for them_ thought Rumpelstiltskin, approaching to the side entrance. Bent low and his head bowed, he slipped inside unnoticed when the crowd sounded especially loud by the main entrance. Someone behind was less lucky. He heard cries "Hey, where the hell are you going?” and less successful bride and groom were shun to the back of the queue.

       Rumpelstiltskin bided his time until the next couple expressed their consent to be husband and wife , and quickly limped to the mayor , who was sitting at a long table behind the priest , along with a couple of clerks, who recorders married couples in a ledger .

       “Excuse me, sir, I’d like to sign into ...” he started uncertainly to a fat, bloated gray-haired mayor, looking condescendingly at what was happening.

      “Name?!” he asked with an arrogant look.

       “Rumpelstiltskin, sir.”

       The mayor turned over a few sheets of thick books, counting lines with a plump finger and squinting myopically.

       “Got it. So it was you??” The fat man angrily leaned his arms on the table and stood up heavily. “You should be thrown into prison, and learn your lesson to respect the authority! Your appointed time was yesterday at noon! Your bride has caused more hassle than a mad dog! Bring her in.” And he flopped back loudly into his chair.

       “What? What bride?” Rumpelstiltskin looked helplessly at the mayor, who was definitely taking him for someone else. All hope for a mistake was quickly forgotten as soon as he reminded himself of his unpretentious, but unique name. Mention of a prison deprived him of any determined mind and he clutched his staff convulsively, unable to find words.

       Behind him, the door swung open with a bang. Rumpelstiltskin turned around and froze in disbelief. Two guards dragged by the arms a ferociously struggling Belle. No sound sprang from her lips. Rumpelstiltskin watched silently the unseen show.

       The guards stopped next to Rumpelstiltskin. Belle refused to rise to her feet and hung, tightly grasped by gloomy guards by her forearm. A bruise on her cheek, which he remembered, healed, but her lips were broken and blood smeared on her cheek. Her thin chest was heaving rapidly and deeply under the same thin dress, wide-open eyes stared sullenly at the fat man, who shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Unkempt locks of hair were hanging over her face, billowing into the air at her sharp, strained breathing.

       “Do you take everyone here for a fool? Wanted to get away from the Duke’s order didn’t you? Take your bride! Or join her in prison - for all eternity!” The mayor shouted angrily at cowering Rumpelstiltskin, eyes sparkling and saliva scattering all around. After a short look at one of the clerks and nodding to him, he leaned back in his chair.

      “No, I just ... I ...” he tried to argue, but then his eyes met a familiar face, until now hidden from him behind a book. Grinning smugly, Bertha’s husband watched him.

       It suddenly dawned on Rumpelstiltskin. _Of course_ , he thought. After learning his mother-in-law’s plans from his wife, the clerk decided to intervene becoming one family with the creature, whom he hated, and all he had to do was just to write his name into the ledger. Next he had to come up with another bride. The idea came instantly - Belle, the town loony. Oh what a perfect couple. In addition, nobody could stand up for the girl. Rumpelstiltskin clung to his staff desperately like it could be of any help.

       “ ... join you in marriage in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

       Rumpelstiltskin winced as a priest ended his short speech.

       “Shouldn’t I all the same ... ask consent?” asked the priest timidly turning to the mayor. He waved his hand.

       “Now get out of here”

 

       The guards, who just kept Belle, pushed them both out of the door into the bright, relentless sun.

       Rumpelstiltskin covered his face with his hand to escape the pain in the eyes. Belle stood motionless beside him with her head down. As soon as they appeared at the door, the crowd began shouting the already familiar wishes of happiness, but quickly stopped. All eyes were fixed on them. Rumpelstiltskin gently tugged the hem of Belle’s dress, wanting to escape as soon as possible from the looks of the crowd, but she did not move.

       “It's the crazy Belle!” sounded a voice in the crowd.

       “And her pitiful fiancé! That's hilarious!”

       People around them burst into laughter, pointing fingers and shouting out insults to the newlyweds. Something solid hit Rumplestiltskin in the temple.. An apple core rolled along the cobblestones, an apple seed stuck in the hair on his temple. 

"Come on!"

"Throw it!"

"Toss me a stone!"

       The first stone slammed the hand that held his staff. The sharp pain made him drop it. He pressed his hand to his chest. A trickle of blood flowed from the broken skin down the arm, hiding in the sleeve.

       “Belle! Come on, please, now, I beg you, Belle!” Rumpelstiltskin pleaded, gently taking her by the elbow, just below her bruised forearms.

Belle jerked her head, and her blue eyes looked at him, as if finally getting it. She nodded and they budged from a spot hit with a stone a second later. Picking up his stick, not letting his hands from Belle, Rumpelstiltskin strode forward, dragging Belle behind.

        _That’s what his wedding was like_.

 


	6. And in Sickness

 

It was hot and stuffy. The sultry midday sun was beaming hard in the face and left deep shadows everywhere. Rumpelstiltskin and Belle walked silently along a dry, dusty road. His hair was stuck to his sweaty forehead; the scorching earth was burning through the sole of the shoes, the linen shirt plastered to his back. His injured hand stung mercilessly and his leg ached and throbbed with dull pain from continuous walking without respite. Thoughts, one more desperate than the other, swarmed in his head like gnats over a rotten apple. On the way home,  it seemed impossible to make а step further, he turned off the road to the edge of the forest, to the long-awaited shade and coolness. Belle followed him, driven  by his hand, holding her belt - a thin braid of three hemp ropes. Leaving the city, Rumpelstiltskin wanted to let her move by herself, but as soon as he let go of her arm, she stopped dead, refusing to walk, unless he pulled her with him.

 Rumpelstiltskin made it to the nearest tree and fell to the ground awkwardly, pulling his injured leg. He examined his hand - streams of dried blood disappeared into his sleeve and at every careless movement of the skin incision new dark drops rolled out. Holding a staff was a torture. His hand was swollen, and when he tried to move his fingers he was stung by a sharp pain. Rumpelstiltskin dread to think how he was going to get home with his leg, it pained him with every movement.  How on earth he was going to spin today?

 A thought about tonight plunged him into even greater despair than a broken arm. Only this morning in front of him there was, one might say, a happy life. He thought that Bae would soon live in a nice house instead of their shack, would eat meat every day and, along with Dorothy, they can bring up both boys. In an instant all his plans had collapsed, leaving him with nothing. Instead of stepping into a new, peaceful and comfortable life, Rumpelstiltskin fell right into the abyss. Today he would lead the girl home, and they would have to share the remaining broth for three instead of two. He tried to banish a horrible possibility that his hand was broken and he could not spin - then they would all die of hunger even before the solstice day. He would have to go to Dorothy, in hope of some help.  He would have to tell her everything that had happened without dying of shame and he did not think that it will be to her liking, being as it was the fault of her dear son in law.

 He realized that Belle was still standing next to him, where he released her girdle.

 “Sit down ... Rest ...” Rumpelstiltskin muttered and pulled down the hem of her dress. The girl sat beside without objection.

A caustic feeling of shame washed over him.

 “I'm sorry, child.  It is just as hard for you, isn’t it? Look how swollen your lip is, for god’s sake. Is it painful when you to talk?”

 Belle was silent, only squinting her eyes at him. Rumpelstiltskin was ashamed of this disgraceful rush of self-pity because compared to this miserable girl; he must be smiling and enjoying the warm day. Beaten up, bloody and barefoot, she had probably not seen a crumb of food or a drop of water for more than a day.  She was lonely, despised and now also tossed into the hands of a stranger. What were his troubles, really?

 He pulled a flask of water out of the bag, uncorked it with his good hand, and, suddenly embarrassed, handed it to her. Belle snatched a flask from his hands and hastily pressed it to her mouth. In a trice she squeezed her eyes shut in pain, whined softly, and ousted the flask. After waiting for a sting of pain to pass, she lifted it again to her lips gently and, adjusting to drink so that it does not hurt, almost completely emptied the bottle and handed it back. Rumpelstiltskin drained it to the bottom, sensing a metallic taste of blood.

 He tried to get back on his feet to continue his way. His hand and knee were screaming in pain after a short rest. After standing still for a moment, he braced himself for the rest of the way, and looked back at Belle. For one tiny, negligible second a thought captured his mind.   _Walk away, leave her_.  She would have found her way to her shack, continued to live her miserable life, or even get lost somewhere in the woods and begone forever.

 Without delay Rumpelstiltskin grabbed her belt, urging her to stand, and resolutely took her to the house, limping ungraciously. Whatever they may think, he does not condemn a defenseless creature to death in order to make his life easier.

 

He led her the longest way around so they did not attract too much attention of the villagers, despite the desire to just fall down there and then.. Belle still trailed behind him obediently, led by the girdle, like a royal tamed fawn in a lush garden.

 Having got her into the house, Rumpelstiltskin slumped on his straw bed, intending to rest a minute before deciding what to do next, and closed his eyes, sighing deeply.

 When he opened his eyes again, the shape of a square rickety window glowed orange on the opposite wall, marking the sunset. Rumpelstiltskin rose abruptly from the uncomfortable position that he had unwillingly had fallen asleep in and eyed around the room. His gaze came across Belle sitting on the floor, hugging her knees and rocking. Rumpelstiltskin heard the sheep bleating and stomping in the barn, it meant that Bae had already driven the sheep and gone to class. If he thought to look in the house, he’d have found a peacefully slumbering father and his lady.

 He had still had at least an hour before Bae returned from the lesson. Now he had to take care of both of them. He carefully flexed his leg, feeling relieved that the pain subsided twice, cured by a couple of hours of deep sleep. However, his hand was even more swollen; it was red and hurt wildly.

 Rumpelstiltskin glanced at Belle. Looking at a mop of brown hair, he remembered  Bae’s gift – a golden satin ribbon, and instinctively fingered it in his waistcoat pocket.

 Most recently, Dorothy had provided them with several self-made products: a healing ointment for Bae, for he was forever getting scratched and knocking his knees, a few bundles of herbs for infusions, and a full bag of chamomile and peppermint tea. Rumpelstiltskin took the ointment from the shelves, scored a bowl of water from a copper kettle, and went back to the girl.  He sat on the floor in front of Belle, slowly, to avoid causing a new twinge in his knee. She watched the bright square of fading sunlight on the wall with weary eyes. He touched her chin, urging her to face him.

 “Oh Belle .... Why did you fight with the guards?” Rumpelstiltskin asked sympathetically. “What could such a thin creature like you do to them?”

He cocked his head, waiting for the answer, but in a moment he bethought who he was talking to and shook his head. The last time, when he first saw her, she at least talked and looked like a pretty weirdo and made him smile. Today she was silent in her apathy and looked pathetic and even creepy.

 Soaking a clean cloth in the water, he began to wash the dried blood from her cheek and chin. Realizing that now one part of her face seemed twice as clean as the other, he cursed under his breath and washed the dirt and road dust from all of her face, ears and neck. Now taking a piece of raw cotton, stockpiled for just such an occasion, he set out to her injured lips. Her blue eyes watched him with the same intense as minutes ago watched the wall. Rumpelstiltskin shivered under her gaze. Carefully processing her wounds, he pondered over her forearms covered with purple bruises, whether they needed ointment or not. He preferred not to think of the other parts of her body. Looking again at the girl's face, he saw that she licked her lips, varnished with the ointment of butter, beeswax, resin and sheep fat. Rumpelstiltskin swore again, painted a new layer and, reaching out, picked up a wooden spoon.

 “Bite” he said, feeling incredibly stupid.

 The girl opened her mouth obediently, clutching her teeth across the spoon. _Much better,_ he thought. _Let her sit here until the cure is absorbed_. He almost chuckled, as she looked like a harnessed horse with this ridiculous spoon in her mouth. _Good thing that the teeth are intact_.

 Rumpelstiltskin got up and went to kindle the fire in the darkness of abrupt twilight. Now he had to do something with his hand.

The door swung open.

 “Dad, I'm ho...oh.”

 Bae’s mouth fell open. He could have expected anything to appear in his small house, but not Lady Belle! And especially not sitting on the floor with a spoon in her mouth.

 “Bae...?” Rumpelstiltskin paused in confusion, kneeling over the logs with a flint in his hand. His son returning caught him by surprise. He did not even have time to think of how to tell him what had happened and of Bae’s feelings about the replenishment of the family.

 “Papa, what's she doing here?” The boy was happy to welcome a guest in his house, but surprised he was a hundred times more.

 “Bae ... it's ...” Rumpelstiltskin did not know at the slightest, did not have a clue about how to explain all neither to Bae, nor to himself.

 “Papa?” The boy approached his father anxiously. “Papa, what happened? You can tell me everything!”

  _Of course_ , he thought, _of course can_. Baelfire was the most intelligent and kind boy. Who else can he share with, if not with his own son? Rumpelstiltskin moved to the bench and patted a spot next to his, urging him to sit.

 He told him everything, although omitting some unpleasant details, not wanting to upset the boy more than was necessary. Bae looked at Belle thoughtfully,fixated on her. Having finished his story, Rumplestiltskin sighed with relief, and then heard a loud crash slamming the door.

 “What was it, Bae?” He was startled.

 “It’s Dorothy who walked me home... She has probably heard everything.”

 Rumpelstiltskin groaned in despair from a gushing insight. Not only he apparently lost his only friend in the whole village, but left her in the lurch - he recalled why exactly she wanted him to marry her at all.

 “Don’t worry, Papa” Bae comforted him “She will forgive you; she does not hold grudges. You just need to apologize.”

 Rumpelstiltskin nodded.

 Bae helped his father with his hand, almost crying when applying a clean bandage. _I hope it isn’t a fracture,_ the man thought, realizing that today he would not be able to work the spinning wheel.  He hoped that it would improve by  morning, for if he doesn’t work, they’ll starve.

 A plate for Belle was found at the very bottom of Mila’s chest. Rumpelstiltskin noted with satisfaction that some of her stuff was still quite intact and didn’t become a dinner for mole. There were some dresses there, as well as underthing, a comb, and a few of other possesings designed for women. He could change Belle into something when needed.

 A plate of soup was getting cold on the table in front of a fixed Belle, who dutifully sat at the table to which Rumpelstiltskin led her, but did not touch the food. As they emptied their plates, hers was still intact, Bae readily ate the leftovers. The host gloomily recalled the amount of food left in the larder.

 Rumplestiltslin was worried – the girl was obviously starving, but she didn’t eat a thing. _She must be too tired,_ he thought. Anyway, it was time to go to sleep.

 They did not have an extra mattress, so two of their own were pushed together so that Belle could fit in.

 Rumpelstiltskin put the girl in the middle, Bae facing the wall, and put out the fire and a candle on the table. He lay down by the outer edge of a makeshift bed, his back to Belle, and tried to drive away from himself a swarm of gloomy thoughts and fearing a loony girl now lying on his bed, very close to his son. Soon he heard a Bae sniffing quietly, gone to his land of dreams. But he could not sleep, feeling Belle’s gaze on the back of his head.

 “They said ...” a hoarse, muffled voice came from behind. Rumpelstiltskin immediately turned over.

 “They said they will give me to a man who will own me. So I fought.”

 It was an answer to his question, he realized. He was sad that she dreaded it so much that she had only just dared to answer. 

 “Why do not you fight me?” He asked, puzzled, because he _was_ the man who took her in marriage and everlasting possession.

 The answer he had was Belles silence and closed eyes.


	7. Lost in the Woods

Rumpelstiltskin slept badly that night, all the while jerking up and checking on Belle and if everything was okay with his son. Every time he woke up, he turned and saw the girl’s blue eyes and was getting anxious about the fact that she wasn’t sleeping. At one point in the night, he woke up hearing a whisper close to his ear. He concentrated, trying to understand the words, but then again Belle was silent, and his sleepy mind refused to speculate on this, exhausted by fatigue and pain. By morning he finally fell asleep for a moment, waking up when the sun stood high above the horizon.

 Belle was not there.

 Rumpelstiltskin looked around the room, making sure that she really was absent.

 “Bae!” he called his son, who was still asleep next to him.

 The boy sat up, yawning wildly and rubbing his sleepy eyes.

 “Where’s Belle, Papa?” he also noticed the empty space where the girl once lay. 

 “I wish I knew ...” Rumpelstiltskin suddenly  thought that she may have just gone out for some  fresh air.

 First, he unwound the bandage on his hand.  It still looked the same; swollen and itchy, stinging with unmerciful pain with each movement. At least it hadn’t gotten worse, so the bones were intact, he noted with relief. All he could do was clench his teeth, and get to work.

 Rumpelstiltskin lit the fire in the hearth and hung copper kettle with water on a hook. Chamomile tea and two pieces of barley bread were their breakfast.

 With the meal finished quickly, and Belle still not here, Bae ran in from the yard.

 “I can’t find her anywhere! I looked in the yard and around the house and in the barn.”  The boy shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “Where has she gone?”

 Rumpelstiltskin sent Bae to herd the sheep, tossed all necessary things into the bag and went to search for Belle. He had to keep his staff his left hand  because the fingers of his right one refused to bend. It was uncomfortable for him to walk and his movements were slow. He thought that _he_ should have better taken care of the sheep instead of the boy because Bae could search the woods much faster than his crippled father. Something told him that she would not have gone the other way, to the village. But he could not graze sheep leisurely, knowing that somewhere a defenseless girl was wandering through the woods alone, and that Bae was there too.

 He began his quest, pacing in ever-widening circles through the forest, which came close to their dwelling on the outskirts of the village. The woods beamed, beautiful in its June perfection. The birds warbled out their intricate trills, finding their own spouses. The further he went into the forest, the thicker the bushes crept along the ground displaying strawberries, and yet small white mushroom heads were peeping out of the soil here and there. Unable to miss the opportunity to bring home delicious goodies, Rumpelstiltskin periodically stopped and filled the bags with mushrooms and berries. In the shade of the forest foliage it was nice and fresh, while at the plain the sun burned all life down mercilessly.

 Sometime past noon, Rumpelstiltskin began to feel ever-increasing concern. Sweeping branches of trees with lush green foliage hindered the search, and though he called her by her name every ten steps, he realized that even if she’d heard it she was unlikely to respond, and so he will walk past her, perhaps hidden behind some oak.

 Imagination told him of more and more options of what could happen to Belle, and none of them included a happy ending. He tried to remember what she whispered to him that night, in hope that it might give him a clue where to look, but could not remember anything specific but a gust of breath tickling his ear. As the sun began to roll towards the horizon, Rumpelstiltskin lost all hope of finding her, but still went on circling the woods along paths almost invisible in the twilight, despite the fatigue and renewed pain in his knee that started to trouble him a lot.

 In the distance he heard the first howling. Now it was too early for wolf hunt, but nocturnal animals have already started to wake up from their days sleep. Fear gripped Rumpelstiltskin’s heart. He hadn’t found Belle, and she was going to be in danger soon enough. He felt miserable; he managed to lose his wife, who had not managed to stay with him a single day! In despair, he turned back to the house, yet firmly intending to continue the search tomorrow morning. Maybe he would go into town, there was always the small possibility that the girl decided to return to her shack.

 As he approached the lake by the edge of the forest, where recently a bonfire for wedding festivities stood, the sky displayed a nearly full moon shining brightly with the cold, harsh light.

 Rumpelstiltskin froze. Not far away in the trees on the shore of the lake, he made out a wolf's tail in the moonlight and heard a short wolf bark. He sank lower and froze in hope that the animal will not notice him, not for a moment leaving his gaze from the now clearly visible outline of the wolf in front of a bright moon.

 A young wolf walked slowly, pausing and wrinkling its nose. To the right Rumpelstiltskin saw the object its interest - a dark figure curled up in the roots of a large tree.

 Belle.

 Instantly Rumpelstiltskin felt a surge of relief that made him almost fall down directly on the damp grass, exhausted by continuous agitation. But immediately he remembered that, at the very same moment when he found his wife, he may lose her forever. Thoughts shot up swirling in his head, looking for a way to save her.

 He leaned hard on his good leg, took a deep breath, jumped out of his hiding place in the thick bushes, shouting at the top of his voice and waving his arms around him, and ran towards the wolf. A curious wolf had already come closer, sniffing Belle’s face, who watched his head motionlessly. If she tried to defend herself, to escape, to move, the wolf would have undoubtedly been chewing on her insides by now.

 With his heart pounding wildly, Rumpelstiltskin reached Belle and stopped. The air in his lungs had depleted and he struggled to take fresh air into his lungs, iron chains of fear squeezed his chest. The wolf took a few steps back, dazed by the appearance of a new beast, clearly bigger and more dangerous than himself.  He bared his teeth and lowered himself to the grass, not wanting to run away, tail between its legs, giving up the fight with a very scary and creepy predator. Rumpelstiltskin rooted to the ground, standing at arm's length in front of a bristling, snarling beast. In desperation, he remembered his staff and catching it by the lower end he dropped it with all his force onto the head of the wolf. It almost managed to dodge, but the whole force of the blow fell on the tip of its sensitive nose.

 The wolf whined in defeat and ran into the forest depth, shaking its head. Rumpelstiltskin was still watching the animal, unable to believe that the outcome of the match ended in his favor, that he had the courage to confront the wolf. He sank helplessly on the ground beside her and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

 “Thank you” a hoarse voice came from Belle, her shaking hands touching his face. “I was so scared”.

 The man startled. He did not expect her to speak to him, moreover touch him so gently.

 “Why did you go into the woods, Belle?” Rumpelstiltskin asked, feeling the warmth spreading from her hands, and blood flushed to his face. She looked at him with such tenderness and gratitude that his heart sank involuntarily.

 “I'm sorry” she said, and smiled shyly with her broken lips. “I was scared”.

 In a rush, he hugged her tightly and held against his chest.

 Of course, fool, of course she was scared! How he could not see it, Rumpelstiltskin reproached himself. She was taken from her house, kept in prison, beaten, and, in the end, given to a stranger who took her out of her town.  He needed to talk to her, tell her that he was not going to hurt her, that she was safe.

 “Don’t worry, child, everything will be fine. You will be fine.” he whispered.

 He felt Belle’s hand slide off his back and tried to pull away. The girl's head lay on his shoulder; her deep, calm breath tickled his throat. Rumpelstiltskin wondered; how she had been able to stand so many days without sleep, she was exhausted to the extreme.

 Rumpelstiltskin leaned the sleeping girl gently against a tree, thinking either to leave her here and call Bae for help, or try to carry her himself. Not daring to risk another encounter with the wolves, he knelt down and picked Belle up, who seemed to weigh even less than she looked, lying lifelessly in his arms. His injured wrist and knee screamed in protest, but he tried not to pay attention, as pitying himself won’t do any help. While being careful not to drop the stick from his hand, he walked slowly to the house. He stopped every few hundred yards to rest but went on his way despite his burden. The girl’s long locks covered her face and waved running down his arm, like a shawl. Those tresses needed careful combing and braiding and it’d be nice to get her a mutch or a wrap of some kind, he thought, as she was supposed to look like a married woman, not like a beggar. And shoes, he added silently, noticing her bare feet, covered in dirt after a day in the woods.

 Bae opened the door when Rumpelstiltskin was entering the gate. His face shone with a smile.

 “Papa, you found her!”

 He ran to his father and helped him to drag Belle onto a blanket spread upon the mattresses.

 Together with Bae he dined with a boiled turnip and cheese. Extinguishing the fire in the hearth, the boy lay on a blanket next to Belle, and instantly fell asleep.

 Let them sleep, thought Rumpelstiltskin, looking at his son and peacefully snoring wife, clutching the blanket. Pushing a smoky candle closer, wincing as pain stung his hand, he began spinning his wheel. The blessing of sleep was not for him that night.


	8. A Barnacle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments, they are really appreciated!

# 8\. A Barnacle

So the days went by. At dawn Rumpelstiltskin took his nine sheep to graze on the meadow, accompanied by their old shepherd dog, the house was left to Bae and Belle. The boy, as usual, went about his duties: scrubbing wool skeins, taking care of his small vegetable garden, where there were pumpkins, turnips, onions, carrots, cabbage and two pear trees, feeding three chickens and a cock, and sometimes, fishing in the lake. As Baelfire grew up, his father could breathe easier year by year, with the boy gladly taking up his housework and helping his father.

       Rumpelstiltskin told Bae to not leave Belle alone and to watch over her, but she did not make more attempts to escape. In the morning she sat down on the threshold of the house, and watched the boy working in the garden, while he told her stories and engaged her in his role-play, finally having a real princess to include in his tales, not a mop. Every day when Rumpelstiltskin returned home, Bae greeted him with the joyful news of what Belle did - helping him weed carrots, sewing on buttons, collecting nuts from a bush, she even sang once. Rumpelstiltskin was glad that she's doing something instead of sitting still, as on the early days being there. But the rest of the time she sat in a quiet corner in the shadows, almost not reminding of her existence, responding occasionally, and only to direct questions. Belle clearly felt freer in the presence of the boy than that of the home owner. When he was near she averted her gaze, though he noticed how she spied on him with askance, thinking that he was not looking.

 

      Only at night, when, shortly before dawn, he stopped spinning his wheel and fell into the bed, she woke up and fell asleep with him again, hugging his arm to herself. He still could not get used to the wonderful feeling of warmth of the female body, sleeping next to him, to her palms, grabbing his sleeve, her cheek pressed against his shoulder. Every night time and again he felt like something sweet and hot poured into his stomach, when she closed her blue eyes, pulled him closer and fell asleep. He fought a desire to hug her back, fearing that it will frighten the girl, who seemed to be a bit scared of him at daytime.

       Today promised to be a hard day. Rumpelstiltskin was about to finally pay a long-deferred visit to Dorothy, the one with apologies. Bae was constantly reminding him of that. Finley furtively told him that his mother was very angry and did not even allow him to play with his best friend.

       It was late afternoon, and his stomach was growling, unsated. He was sitting, leaning against a tree trunk on a log near his sheep. Nearby another herd of sheep was grazing the grass, supervised by a shepherd, who was eating jerky with gusto, the heavenly smell reaching even here. Since yesterday afternoon he didn’t have a single crumb in his mouth, forgetting today to take food and a flask to the fields. His dog, Jack was lying beside, his head resting on his paws, while sheep behaved well and his comeuppance was not needed.

       Jack brought him out of slumber, barking off into the distance. Tracing the dog’s look he saw Baelfire and Belle in the distance. The boy said something to her, pushing in the direction of his father. Belle nodded and went towards him. Rumpelstiltskin closed his eyes, pretending not to notice.

       Through his eyelids he felt a shadow fell over him. She stood there, shifting from foot to foot. Tiptoeing to him, she bent over him, and Rumpelstiltskin felt her breath on his face.

       For half a minute they did not move, and he wanted to open his eyes and greet Belle, but then her fingertips touched his forehead. She ran her fingers over his wrinkles, straightening them, like wanting to erase a life full of sorrow from his face, then along the long nose, tapping at a hump, than along the cheekbones.

        Rumpelstiltskin felt numb, mesmerized, unable to not receive a sublime, exquisite pleasure from her such coveted touches. Belle lightly touched his thin lips with her fingertips - Rumpelstiltskin held his breath - lightly stroking her thumbs from the center outwards, as if trying to force them into a smiling position.

       Fingers slid further, lightly nails scratching his neck and falling on his chest and collarbone into a low cut shirt collar.

       Suddenly,  Jack began to bark and her touch disappeared. Magic dissipated. Rumpelstiltskin sat up, opened his eyes. Jack wagged his tail and finned around Belle’s legs, wanting to be patted, too.

       “Hey, Belle!” Rumpelstiltskin tried to sound nonchalant, as if he had no throbbing weakness overflowing his insides, fogging his mind. “What are you doing here?”

       “I brought you some lunch”.  Belle dived into the bag Bay hung on her shoulder, and took out a sack wrapped in cloth, together with his flask, and handed it to him, lowering herself by his side.

       His lips broke into a satisfied smile. He unfolded the wrapper and stared at his dinner in amazement. It contained, besides the usual scones, two birds legs.

       “And where did the bird come from?” he asked.

       “The birdie was caught in the yard by the ginger cat. A quail. It flew in to rob the chickens of grain”. Belle explained quietly and tunefully, as usual.

       Rumpelstiltskin eagerly bit into the juicy, fragrant leg.  For a long time he rarely ate meat.  Not more than once a month or two they were able to buy a piece of poultry or pork, mostly living on cheese with vegetables and porridge, and sometimes fish caught by Bae.

      “Who did the cooking?” He knew that Bay didn’t know how to cook meat, his father forbade him, fearing that his son would ruin a valuable product.

       “I did.” Belle replied.

       “How did you learn that?”

       “My father brought home animals from the hunting for lunch. I watched the chefs prepare.”

       Rumpelstiltskin first didn’t understand what she was talking about. He had forgotten about her story, about her past as a favorite daughter of a wealthy merchant.

       “You ate something too, didn’t you?”

       Belle shook her head. Rumpelstiltskin gathered an impromptu tablecloth and shifted into her lap. She looked at the remaining leg and back to him.

       “I cooked for you. I want to be a good wife.”

       “Eat, I’m telling you. Look at your knees – so sharp you can cut yourself” He straightened her skirt, hiding her knee under a hem of the dress.

       Belle dutifully grabbed the leg and gladly savored it, wiping her hands on her skirt. " _Where are your manners, milady_?"  Rumpelstiltskin silently chuckled to himself.

       The girl stood up, crumpling the cloth into a ball.

       “I will go back. Bae told me not to be long”.

       As if hearing the man’s thoughts she bent her knees in a curtsey, awkwardly balancing, and ran back to the boy, flashing her bare feet.

       Rumpelstiltskin saw a dog guarding his neighbor’s flock running past him, and behind it, pushing back his hat, the shepherd, who teased him with the smell of his delicious lunch.

       “Hey!” A mustachioed man waved in greeting, as was customary.

       Rumpelstiltskin returned the greeting.

       “And who was that?”

       “Who?” He raised his head abruptly. He was already facing away from the shepherd; he didn’t expect to hear a question.

       “ _That girl!_ Lawks like you found ya’self a maid. What a ragamuffin, I tell ya. Better be ’areful – she’s a feif! Dir’y, all in rags, hair uncovered, knees peeking – yikes, what a sham!” The shepherd shook his head and went on arguing about the boneheads that live to steal.

       Indignation and shame washed over Rumpelstiltskin. It was his wife, and not some ragamuffin, but the most beautiful girl in the world! Let it not be seen behind a layer of dust and healing scars, but he knew it well enough. For a hundred times already he surreptitiously studied her features, when he thought she was not looking, and he knew it – she was beauty incarnate.

       He quickly drove the sheep to the stream to drink water, and returned home a few hours earlier than usual.

      “We have some work to do, Bae.” He said flatly to his son, astonished by his father’s early appearance. “Fetch the bucket, and… find that piece of soap that we made.”

       Bae turned on his heels and disappeared into the doorway, running to the barn.

       Rumpelstiltskin meanwhile unlocked Mila’s chest, recently opened for the first time in many years for the plates, and spread the available items over the lid. Selecting a cotton home robe, old and thin from continuous wearing,  and long white chemise and white light sundress with dark stitching on the edges, which went down to mid-calf. He contemplated for a moment and fetched a wooden comb and light summer shoes.

       Bae returned with a bucket and a piece of scented soap, which he and his father once tried to make by themselves, but abandoned, realizing the complexity of the process, preferring soap root.

       “What now, Papa?”

       “Now I'll take Belle to the lake. You stay here.” Rumpelstiltskin stuffed neatly folded clothes in a bag and took Belle’s hand. She was watching the bustle around her quietly.

       “Come on, let’s make you pretty.”

       On the lake, in a small shelter formed by a small rock and thick trees, convenient for bathing and hidden from view, Rumpelstiltskin stopped, wondering what to do next. No less than a thousand times he washed his son in warm waters of the lake, but to undress Belle, despite her being his wife before the heavens, he did not dare.

       “You know what to do with it?”  He tried his luck as he handed the soap, the bucket, and a piece of coarse linen cloth for cleaning, to the girl.

       “Of course I do, I know how to wash myself.” Belle nodded confidently, and began to untie her hemp belt. Rumpelstiltskin quickly turned on his heels and stared at the tree, trying not to think about the sound of fabric sliding along the skin. He reached back with a bucket. Belle, snatching it briskly walked towards the water. He peeked over her shoulder. Her dress was lying on the sand, and he put it in a bag. No sooner then he heard the sound of splashing water estranging did Rumpelstiltskin carefully look at the water surface.

       The girl's head was sticking out over the lake surface, hands raked water one after the other, and sometimes she submerged completely, diving. He was nervous; worried that she might drown, every time looking intensely for her head to reappear when she disappeared under the water's surface. For a while she was swimming with pleasure in the pleasant coolness of the lake after a hot summer day. Rumpelstiltskin was sitting on the shore, not taking his eyes off her. She saw him, smiled, and waved, and swam to the rocks where the bucket with soap was left. She started to climb onto a flat stone and quite a bit of her was still hidden under the water so it was convenient for her to sit on while bathing. Rumpelstiltskin turned his back, flushed.

       “I am done.” The girl declared right behind him.

       Rumpelstiltskin turned and saw Belle, thoroughly cleaned. Hair, darkened with water, was plastered all over her skin. Water droplets were sparkling on a very, very naked Belle. A second he spent in a daze, then hurriedly covered her with the robe lying ready in his lap, and wrapped her in it together with her arms, disregarding the sleeves. Belle opened the tails of the robe again, slipped her hands into the sleeves and tied the belt.

       Rumpelstiltskin shook his head, trying to forget the vision before his eyes, although he could not quite describe what he saw, more affected by the fact of a naked girl in front of him than some definite details.

       Deciding not to clothe her in a proper attire until her hair was dry, he led her back to the house.

 

       Bae sat at the table, whittling himself a new sword with his favorite knife.

       “Hey Papa, hey Belle!”  And the boy was immediately back to the manufacture of a new knight equipment.

       Rumpelstiltskin had the woman seated on chair from the spinning wheel by the fire to keep her away from cold. He picked up the comb and began untangling her hair. Closer to the scalp hair was still possible to comb through, but the ends were so tangled that the man, try as he might, could not push the comb to the end of the first strand he took. Belle didn’t twitch, but he saw that it was painful for her as well.

       “Bae, fetch me the scissors please”

      “Why? What shall we do?” he asked curiously.

      “We have a certain meek lamb to shear” chuckled Rumpelstiltskin.

 

 


	9. What Turns into a Beast

Belle appeared before them, shifting uneasily from foot to foot in unfamiliar shoes two sizes too big. Clothes hung loosely on her shoulders as Mila was a woman of height and figure, unlike the small and fragile Belle. Rumpelstiltskin rolled up her sleeves to make her hands visible from under them. The tunic had more to work on - he had to shorten the straps using the girl as a mannequin so that all parts of the outfit were in the right place.  He tightened the laces on the bodice as tight as possible but it still hung from her shoulders like a sack. He sent Bae to look for a shawl in the trunk, and he began braiding her hair, now smooth, shiny, slightly wavy, twice shorter now and reaching up to the middle of her back. He braided two thin strands starting from her temples, and joined them in the back, opening the face. The rest of the hair was left in soft waves. He saw that Belle liked it when he touched her hair - she closed her eyes and hummed under her breath a quiet, unintelligible melody.

 “Belle!” Baelfire exclaimed, returning to the room with a shawl in his hands. “Belle, you are the most beautiful in the world!”  The boy, smiling widely, hugged the girl impulsively. “Dorothy is nice, of course, but at least now my stepmother is a real princess!”

 “A princess.” Rumpelstiltskin chuckled, although in his heart he could not agree more with the boy. “Well, shall we put her crown on her?”

 He threw a light shawl over her hair, covering her brown curls with regret. But for a married woman it was indecent to walk around bareheaded.

 “Well, everything seems to be ready, doesn’t it, Bae?”

 “Papa, please let me go with you. I want to go too!”

 “No, son” Rumpelstiltskin shook his head “You better stay at home, alright?” He didn’t want the boy to witness his conversation with Dorothy, as he will have to apologize in any way possible. He could not afford feud to grow between their families, because the friendship with Finley and the woman’s lessons were very important to his son. And he himself could not refuse her help, as there was nobody else to turn to in the whole village, come illness.

 Leaving the boy to continue to engage with his sword, which he had already finished, he went to the neighbor’s house, leading Belle forward. Now he will not be ashamed of the girl, who now looked clean and tidy in neat, albeit her not-quite-fitting clothes.

 “May I ask ....”Belle started, coming to a halt on the path trodden in the grass.

 “Yes? Ask away Belle”.  Rumpelstiltskin turned around, all the way expressing attention.

 “My name is Belle .... “ She paused and curtsied. “And what’s your name?”

 “My..?” He asked perplexedly, “But...”

 He let out a burst of laughter. He had never had the opportunity to introduce himself, and his son did not call him by name either. Even that day in the hall city hall, he introduced himself to the Mayor before Belle was brought in.

 “Rumpelstiltskin, child. I'm Rum-pel-stilt-skin” he repeated his name slowly, seeing the girl’s confusion.

 Belle curtseyed again and went on, muttering his mouthful name under her breath. When she could finally pronounce it correctly she stopped again.

 “Rumpelstiltskin, where are we going?”

 “To the neighbor in that house over there. I need to talk with her.” He pointed his hand in the direction they were heading to.

 Belle continued on, but stood up again, not budging. Rumpelstiltskin was expecting a new question, but it didn’t follow. The girl was staring into the ground shyly, and seemed to burst into embracing her knees and swaying back and forth, as in the first days of her stay at his house.

 “Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” he took her by the shoulders anxiously/ trying to calm her down.

 “I'm afraid” the girl replied.

 “Of what, love?” Rumpelstiltskin asked, touching her cheek with his knuckles.

 “Of people. I'm afraid of strangers. They scare me” the girl explained, averting her gaze.

 “Belle, do not worry, nobody will hurt you now. We’ll just talk and you’ll sit next to us, okay?” he hugged her, patting her back in a fatherly jest, and led on, taking her hand again.

 Rumpelstiltskin knocked on the door. Sunset was waning, giving way to twilight.

 “Come in”. Dorothy’s voice was sharp, even muffled by the closed front door.

 They proceeded into the kitchen, which served as both a living room and a workshop for the healer. She kneaded dough in a bowl, her back to them.

 For a moment he stood in silence, not knowing how to start. Belle stared at the floor next to him, the hostess continued to knead the dough.

 “Dorothy ...” he started hesitantly “I don’t know how it all happened. I did not want to let you down, believe me, please”. Beforehand he decided not to mention her son in law, as it could not have brought anything good. “I'm sorry, but Bae has done nothing wrong. He misses your lessons and his friend ...”

 “I’ve had enough” the woman stopped and picked up a towel, wiping her hands from flour. “I've heard that when you told ya son that night. I just lost my temper. Everything was for the better”.

 “And what about you? The first day of summer’s long gone ...”

 “Ah. That. There’s not enough men for all the widows” The woman spread her hands. “So I was lucky, unlike… some” she chuckled. “Look what a gem you’ve got – a mad lady. Oh she was - so horrible, all messy, covered in blood, a pure nightmare of the night”.

 Rumpelstiltskin pulled his wife closer.

 “Well, meet my Belle. Belle - this is Dorothy”. He pointed at the woman in front of them, as if she could think of someone else. She glanced askance at her, and looked down again.

 “I see you’ve smartened her up. But it hasn’t done much for her brains I see. Well, come on, sit down, have a drink or something” she waved her hand in the direction of the table.

 The three of them were drinking tea for a long time, discussing their children and future plans. Belle pleased Rumpelstiltskin sitting totally like a real lady, gently sipping tea with a bagel. Manners, oh yes she had them. She was a noble lady once, not like their kind.

 “I saw children such as she” the woman started, head cocked, considering the girl’s behavior. “Few people live to become older, except for those born in rich families” told Dorothy. “Although those I’ve seen are ill from birth. Oh, and you have to muster your patience with her.”

 “There are others like her?” Rumpelstiltskin moved closer, curious. “How do I behave with her? I rarely understand what’s on her mind.”

 “Of course, because her mind is arranged differently. They are somewhere in their heads buried in their own little worlds, and not interested in anything around. Since people are not able to communicate, they don’t understand the rules - what is allowed and what is not. They don’t understand allusions. They don’t look straight into people’s eyes, they don’t remember faces. Strange their preferences are – they may like everything green and be scared of the smell of fish, for example. Some may get lucky with reason. Some can savvy better than most а us, but do not show it. Although, many remain helpless as a baby for all their lives.”

 “What should I do, Dorothy? Is there some special way to handle her?”

 “Yes there is a way. Piles of patience and not asking much from her, and perhaps you’ll get used to her, find your own way. I’ll give you a tincture to get her to sleep if she’s too anxious, but apart from that I’m afraid there is no remedy. There’s nothing else you can do.” she shrugged. “I am a simple healer, not a scientist of any doctor or the like.”

 “Okay, we'll probably go home then.” Rumpelstiltskin rose from the table. “Thank you for the hospitality, Dorothy. Many happiness to you and your family.”

 “Wait, let me fetch you some apples into the basket. I’ve got a lot of these in my cellar and Finley cannot manage them all without the girls” help.” and she disappeared into the door towards to the cellar.

 Rumpelstiltskin pulled Belle’s hand, forced her to stand and touched up the shawl on her head, the one she threw on her back.

 “Now we’re going to wait for Dorothy and go home.” Rumpelstiltskin smiled at her, nodding toward the door and the house. Belle smiled back at him, and stepped over the threshold, stubbornly tearing off the head shawl. Her nose buried in a leather vest, spanned by a broad, muscular chest. A tall, handsome, man, with black hair tied in a ponytail, appeared following the chest. It was Dorothy’s second son in law, Gaston.

 Belle pulled back, closing her mouth opened in surprise. Seconds ticked in a silent scene. Belle gazed in wonder at the unexpected obstacle, Gaston surveyed the unearthly blue-eyed beauty, shiny curls spilled over her shoulders,  that appeared out of nowhere in the house of his mother in law. Rumpelstiltskin felt ashamed of his worn boots, his torn and faded shirt, grayness in hair and the staff in his hand, standing next to a model of masculine beauty, especially as he barely reached the brunet’s shoulder in height.

 “Oh! Greetings to you, my lady” the guy turned his charm by weighing elegant bow and pressing his lips to the back of her hand. She winced, but didn’t remove her hand and curtseyed lowly. “May I know your name?”

 Rumpelstiltskin felt a twinge of anger. That kern would have never looked at his Belle with such lust, if he hadn’t washed her and dressed decently, and would have passed, frowning contemptuously, by the hapless ragamuffin, which the spinner saw that spring day in rickety shack.

 “My name is Belle French, I am immensely pleased to meet you, my lord.”

 Gaston’s chin shot up, betrothed with title of  ‘Lord’ and Belle’s light hand. _When she called me so_ , thought Rumpelstiltskin with unexpected zeal, _I fell on my knees before her._

 “Oh, Gaston!” Dorothy came back with a basket full of red apples. “Wait a moment, I’ll see the guests out and give you the herbs Martha requested. Here are the apples, tell Bae to come tomorrow.” she turned to Rumpelstiltskin and went on about her business.

 They walked back home in silence in the darkness of a summer night. Belle was quiet again, but in Rumpelstiltskin’s heart, unfamiliar emotions started growing. He could not help but be aware of the dazzling beauty of his wife, as well as Gaston’s and realized that standing next to them he looked miserable in the least. He could not forget Belle’s glance, fascinated by at the dark-haired dreamboat. Even the fact that she was his lawful wife did not save him from burning jealousy.

 Bae was asleep in his place against the wall, hugging his sword. He left a lighted candle for the adults so that they wouldn’t have to look for flint in the dark and light them again.

 Rumpelstiltskin took the apples to the small pantry and decided to do without dinner today, after tea and bagels at Dorothy’s. He came back, put an apple in front of Belle, sitting on a bench, and sat down at a spinning wheel, gnawing a piece from his own and taking over his work.

 She sat at the table, biting small pieces from the, and casted sly glances at Rumpelstiltskin. _Comparing_ , he thought, unable to let go of the caustic thoughts. Of course, she, like any girl, wanted to see herself next to a courageous, strong, handsome man, and not a poor old lame spinner like him. He knew how often women, forced in marriage against their will for the elderly men, prefer company of the brave folk in the taverns, not disdaining even to let some young kipper into a sacred marriage bed.

 He spent a few more hours at the spinning wheel, doing the daily norm and allowing poisonous thoughts to erode his self-esteem. Nobody has ever been kind to him since Milah’s death, but his son. No one loved him. _And never will._  Another evil thought threw more wood in the fire of his self-immolation.

 Belle, meanwhile, saw spinner finishing his work, and began to prepare for bed. She kicked off her shoes, worked through the lacing of her dress, and stepped out of it, puddled onto the floor. Lifting it off the floor, she folded it neatly and placed it on the bench.

 The chemise with one shoulder bared, the sleeves rolled up, not supported by the sundresses anymore, flowed down to her knees in a cloud around her form, clearly defined against the candle light. She extinguished the candle on the table and settled in the center of the bed at the usual spot.

 Rumpelstiltskin looked up from the ensuing view in front of him, put out his candle, too, took the vest off and lay down on the edge of his bed with his back to the girl.

 “Belle ...” he called in whisper, when he realized that a herd of thoughts in his head is not going to calm down. “Are you sleeping?”

 “No, Rumpelstiltskin.”  Replied the quiet voice at the back. “I'm waiting for you to turn.”

 The man rolled onto his back obediently, and Belle’s his hands wrapped immediately around his forearm, cheek buried in his shoulder.

 “Tell me ... Do you like Gaston?” He recalled Dorothy’s advice to ask directly.

 “Do I like? Yes. He's handsome and polite. I like it when a man is handsome and polite. The nurse always taught me to be nice and polite, too.”

 Rumpelstiltskin’s heart skipped a beat. All just as he had feared.

 “Would you like to see him more often?” he asked, forcing himself, knowing that he will not deny the girl in the company of someone who she really liked. He felt the girl smiling into his shoulder and laughing silently.

 “No, silly. You are the only one I want to see more often.”

 Rumpelstiltskin felt the tub of water poured out on the fire inside him, turning the flame into hissing vapor. He gently ran his fingers through her hair and pressed his lips to her forehead in a gentle kiss.

 


	10. By the Looks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks again to dear lizzietothet who saves English from my torturing hands and makes a decent fiction pie out of my awkward word cookery.  
> And thank you very much to all the readers, who leave comments! They are amazingly appreciated!

“Where are we going?” Belle asked, already halfway to the destination, like she usually did.

 The three of them strode on a summer morning on a narrow country road, with tall, overgrown grass at the sides. The air was full of the scent of hay, earth and buzzing bees. The cows were mooing and grazing in the meadows. Summer was in full swing. The sun had not risen high enough to become a hellish fire so it was easy and pleasant to walk along the road, even with a cart filled with goods up to a brim. Today was market day. Bae went skipping ahead in a fine linen tunic, breeches and a pretty ugly straw hat, but he loved it passionately. His father had taught them to weave straw, so they, and Belle, spent a whole evening weaving this hat. Rumpelstiltskin was pushing the cart, in the same vest with a belt and a summer shirt, which could be undone at the throat and let the breeze blow over his skin. Belle chose her outfit herself today diving into the chest of things belonging to her predecessor, with pleasure. She had put on her shirt with its sleeves rolled up, a gray cotton floor-length skirt and red corsage made of thick fabric, with black lacing in the front, emphasizing her perfect physique and making it look more of a slender figure than an emaciated one.

 “We’re going to the town, Belle!” Bae caught up with the girl. “We’ll sell wool and goat cheese and will earn a lot of money today! Maybe we'll buy a sweet bun or even candy! Pa, please can we buy some candy? Well, for Belle, of course, not for me, I’m too big for that.” The boy added proudly and a little embarrassed.

 “Perhaps we will.” Rumpelstiltskin agreed with a smile. Today was definitely a great day, and nothing could spoil it. In summer, wool was not being sold as well as in autumn and winter but there were vegetables and fruits that you can collect; mushrooms, berries and even fish, and it took much less firewood, and they had enough money consequently. Winters were a much darker time. He always loved summer. So surprising, he thought, that he had recently been walking out of town with Belle - a burden on his shoulders, a debt that he had to endure. Now he pushes the cart with joy together with his family.

 Passing by the edge of the forest, where for one brief moment he was ready to leave her to the wolves, he averted his eyes from the girl and lowered his head, glad that she could not read minds, his weird Belle.

 Bright sun lit the marketplace, reviving joy in the spinner. Cheese was sold out within the first hour of trading, and he had actually doubted the venture! When Belle began helping Bae in domestic affairs, he taught her how to make goat cheese - it was not difficult, but it required patience, time and skill. Soon their pantry overflowed with cheese so that Bae expressed the idea to put the surplus for sale, and he was absolutely right - with the help of only cheese money, what they had earned was enough to live on for a month. The girl came to add fragrant forest herbs to the cheese, and the product had become even more tasty, and most importantly - had a delicious, tart smell that attracted buyers to their tray.

 Belle, thought Rumpelstiltskin, also made people pay attention to their goods. Hardly any of the townspeople would have recognized a crazy girl in this cute, laughing lady, preoccupied with every day troubles. All together with her hair pinned under the bonnet she had become totally unrecognizable.

 The girl was standing next to him and counted change, never making a single mistake. Completely absorbed in her task she did not notice the people around her and wasn’t scared, as far as he noticed.

 Rumpelstiltskin decided to skip lunch break, and wait until everything was sold as there were very little skeins of wool left in the cart. He planned to buy his two helpers some delicacy, tamarinds, baked with spices or figs in honey. Although the solstice festival has not yet arrived, he wanted to please his beloved today.

 “I want to ask something.” Belle touched his elbow, attracting his attention.

 “Yes?” Rumpelstiltskin turned to her, listening. It seemed as if no matter how better she got, she still could not speak freely and be the first to start a conversation.

 “We have come here, where I lived. I want to go home.” Belle looked at him with a strange longing in her eyes.

 Rumpelstiltskin went cold inside. Did she really want to go back? Really, did she not want to live in his house with him and his son? He supposed that he could not give her a lot, but this life was certainly better than the one she had left in the windy dilapidated shack.

 “Why ... home? Belle ... don’t ...” he squeezed the brim of the trolley in order to maintain balance and pleadingly looked at the girl again, for the umpteenth time, not understanding her.

 “Papa, when the lady wants to go somewhere, we have to accompany her” Bae shrugged and looked invitingly at his father, stretched out his hands toward Belle, who had already been walking toward a nearby alley. “Fine, whatever, then I’ll go.” The boy grinned and ran after the girl.

 Rumpelstiltskin was taken aback for a moment, not knowing what to do, but then quickly swept the money from the counter into his purse and tucked cloth into the empty cart.  He hurried after his son, hand in hand with his wife, who had already disappeared behind a turn, his staff knocking on the road stones.

 He caught up with them when they were already in the barn, called “home” by mistake. Baelfire and Belle sat on the floor at an open drawer, which he had noticed in their first meeting. In the girl's hands there was a book. Rumpelstiltskin stood on the porch in indecision, and then came and sat next to two figures hunched over a box.

 It was not what he expected to see, but in the end, he thought, it was logical. In the box there was a small oil-painted portrait of a man and a woman, the mother and father of the girl, he gathered. On the second portrait, slightly smaller one, Belle herself was depicted in coal, only years younger. The shoulders were as angular as they were now, Rumpelstiltskin pointed to himself, but her face was quite an adult one now, acute, without that baby fat present in the picture. Also there were several unfamiliar metal objects, including a helmet with gears and little sashes, and very strange asymmetrical glasses with convex lenses. Strewn on the bottom there were several buttons, a glove, some beads and laces.

 “ _Childhood treasures_ ” guessed Rumpelstiltskin. ” _What was left of her destroyed house and deceased family_.”

 “Mom and Dad.” Belle gladly gave him the picture. “Daddy's glasses. Tesgoll’s helmet. Yuna’s bead. Jamesina’s mirror. Mom's glove.” The girl passed him all her treasures, which he could barely keep pace to pick up, not letting them fall, and put in his lap.

 “Home. It is necessary to take them home. My old house.” She looked straight into his eyes, begging .

 He almost laughed with relief.

 “Of course, my girl, we'll take everything. So that’s what kind of home you had meant ...”

He gathered all things in a big bag taken just in case and hung it over his shoulder. Raking burnt pieces of ribbons from the bottom of the box, he suddenly remembered something.

 “Bae!” he almost shouted with excitement. “Bae, we have forgotten your gift!”

 “What?”  Bae had totally forgotten about that bartered rabbit too, the one that he swapped for the ribbon.

 Rumpelstiltskin took the ribbon out of his waistcoat pocket. It still stayed there folded in laps, waiting for its moment. The boy beamed. How could he forget about his gift! After all he loved it more than everything, almost more than his knightly battles. Making gifts.

 “Look, Belle, it’s a present from Baelfire to you! Do you like it?”

 The girl enthusiastically took the folded ribbon from his hands. Unwrapping and admiring the shimmering gold on thin expensive fabric, she laced it between her fingers and wrapped around the palm. She handed it back.

 “Tie it?” She pulled back the cap, revealing wonderful shiny locks, wavy since they had cut them.

 Rumpelstiltskin, considering her from all sides, decided to tie the ribbon as he had seen it on the wedding day on Martha, placed it a little above the forehead and tied at the back of the neck, opening her face but leaving free the entire thick mane of hair lie freely.

 “Now let’s go home!” The girl flashed a smile and jumped out of her former home, feeling her new hairstyle. Rumpelstiltskin decided not to remind her of the cap and let her hair, which he secretly admired, run wild.

 “Bae, son,” he beckoned the boy. “You and Belle can now go and buy yourselves some sweets. I'll wait for you at the cart.” And he wrapped a few copper coins into the boy's palm – as much as he could afford after their today’s revenue.

 Bay jumped up, kissed him on his cheek and scurried away not feeling the earth beneath him.

 One lame old spinner was happy as ever.

 Rumpelstiltskin has long collected all their belongings, as well as Belle’s treasures, and waited for the sweet tooth to finally appear.

 “What’s taking so long,” he muttered, nervous. Finally, he rolled the cart to the edge of the road where it would not get in anyone’s way, and went to look for the lost ones.

 Yet far from reaching the shops that sold sweets, Rumpelstiltskin heard screams. With a sense of foreboding, he rushed forward into the alley.

 The scene in front of him made him numb. Belle, bloody hell, his little Belle nestled to a wall of the house.  She was sitting on the ground, hugging her knees and covering her face with her hands, a posture, rehearsed for years. The dress was all in dust, all in someone's dirty footprints, and her hands, covering her head, were covered with blood.

 “Dressed up, you nutter?” Screaming teenagers gathered around her. “Where have you stolen it, thief?” Another stone hit her on the shoulder.

 She flinched.

 “Where did you get it?”  A fist with crumpled gold ribbon rose up.  “It smells now you’ve warn it!”

The ribbon flew towards Belle. She grabbed it and pressed it to her chest, gold fabric instantly soaked with blood.

 Numbness fell from Rumpelstiltskin. He rushed forward, relentlessly pushing the onlookers, and fell in front of a girl, hugging her, protecting her against cruel roisters.

 “Papa!” he heard Baelfires’s scream from the other side of the alley. A bag of tamarinds, nuts and raisins which he had so long and carefully chosen in the shop, fell to the ground. The boy, without a moment's hesitation, rushed to his father, picked up his wallowing staff, and turned to the offenders of the lady, knees bent, his face illumined with anger and determination.

 The bullies retreated. One thing was to get at the crazy girl, but to attack, even in a predominant amount, two of them, one of whom was a boy, though younger than them, but looking downright furious, they had no desire. The youngsters retreated, hiding in the crowd. Nobody saw how badly Bae’s hands trembled, clutching the makeshift mace to numbness.

 “We’re leaving, Bae, come on.” the father told the boy in a muffled voice and they went away, leading the girl., with her fingers dripping blood onto the alley.

 Again, they walked along the same road and again, she walked quietly, not crying, not complaining about the pain, not cradling her brutally beaten and scratched hands and not noticing her swollen forehead and temple. Rumpelstiltskin tried to get her to sit in the cart, but she just waved him off, smiling and shaking her head. He refused to understand it. How could she smile when all corners of his own soul howled in despair? As if teasing him she briskly walked forward, ahead of the truck. Bae caught up with her.

 “Belle, why are you smiling?” the boy wondered, imagining how painful to have so many cuts and bruises. He certainly would not have smiled, but endured injuries silently, like a knight.

 “Oh little Sparrow .... I'm just used to it. It is not the first and not the last time.”

 “Why didn’t you run away? You could get away before papa found you.

 “I know that if I had run away, the pain would have been even harder.”

  

 

Gaston was lying in the shade of a bush of grass and chewing thoughtfully, watching over a herd. He had just seen a nice girl with a little boy pass him without noticing. Rumpelstiltskin 's wife, as he was explained later that evening by his mother-in-law, which  were  married by force. Now she looked terrible. Gaston could not believe that her husband could treat his wife like that, even a hated one. His Martha would have never ever been touched by him with bad intentions. His heart overflowed with compassion for the poor girl.

 

“I’m smiling, Bae,” the girl began to answer the old question when they already went into the yard, for some reason looking at Rumpelstiltskin with laughing eyes,  “because it is the first time that I have someone to protect me.”

 

 


	11. Abduction

Rumpelstiltskin was worried about her hands, which represented an eerie sight, all covered in blood and dirt. Why did the worst things always happen to them?

 “Bae, son, please bring me a kettle and a clean cloth and run back to Dorothy for a jar of ointment.” he instructed. The boy nodded and started to perform the task, dragging the kettle, and ran out the door towards their neighbor’s house.

 Rumpelstiltskin sat Belle down on the bench at the table and gently placed her hands, covered in blood, on the dining surface. The girl subjected implicitly, a slight smile playing on her lips.

 “Doesn’t it hurt, Belle?” The man shook his head, wetting the cloth with water. Barely touching, he wiped the blood from her hands, changing the muddy red water almost every time after rinsing the rag.

 “It only hurts a little. I know that will soon pass.” replied the girl, head cocked, faint smile touching her lips.

 Rumpelstiltskin continued his work, with each part of her skin washed, his feeling of relief grew. It was apparent that there was a lot of blood, but not so much  of an injury. He found only one deep cut on her right hand, obtained when smothered against the ground in the fall, and a few superficial abrasions on the back of her hand and arm, left by the stones. The cut was still bleeding, but the remaining injuries were trifling.

 How much had the girl suffered, he thought, when pain for her was an old friend? He looked at her thin, delicate female fingers, so pale compared to his swarthy, rough, calloused hands of a peasant. Those fingers would have to deal with silk, feather pillows, rough pages of books, but not with hurting stones and earth.

 Yielding to a sudden impulse, he took her hands in his and leant in for a kiss. At the same moment when he felt the smoothness of her skin on his lips, his insides clenched into a tight ball of heat and his bones turned to jelly. He almost groaned in surging weakness, but, unable to stop, he covered her fingers  with kisses, one after the other.  Then all the curves and lines of her hands, wrists, blue traces of veins on the back of her hand. He forgot about everything except for his lips feeling her skin, enjoying the sensation like an exquisite delicacy. Suddenly he felt the taste of blood on his tongue and Belle’s hand jerked. He opened his eyes and straightened up. He realized that he touched a deep cut on the palm of her hand, which hadn’t stopped bleeding yet.

 He didn’t dare to raise his head, still holding her hand, feeling of shame engulfing him over the head in searing waves. He most definitely felt the deepest affection for Belle, but it didn’t mean that she should feel the same.

 She took her palms out of his hands, only to hold his face, still dropped low under a curtain of grayish hair.

 “I'm sorry, I don’t know what came over me ...” he muttered, without looking up.

 The girl merely smiled and tried to lift his flushed face, drawing him up to herself. He looked into her eyes and thought that kissing his wife was the most right thing ever existing in the world.

 “Papa! I’ve brought the ointment, and Dorothy also gave some skein pieces of fabric for bandages, and says that if it's bad we must get Belle to her, she’ll take a look.” – it was Bae’s voice, shouting merrily when he entered the house, running.

Rumpelstiltskin recoiled from Belle, confused with his son’s arrival in this strange, dreamlike moment.

***

 Gaston was set up very strongly. He found out everything he could from Martha.

He had never met the lame spinner before, but his son, he had seen a few times at Dorothy’s. Of course, thought Gaston with burning hatred, his own flesh and blood he would never touch, and as for a defenseless wife – why not? But what a monster you have to be to hurt such a beauty?

 Having found out that his wife turned out to be weak by reason, he got even angrier. The scoundrel took advantage of her helplessness! But it led him to one idea, and he hoped to implement it not later than today.

 Gaston watched from the nearest yard fence. The master of the house had gone into the field, leaving only his child at home with the girl. The boy went out to feed the chickens in the backyard, the girl was sitting on a porch in a sundress, white with black stitching, hugging her knees and humming a tune under her breath. The poor girl obediently endured all bullying, and even found the strength to enjoy life, thought Gaston. But he was going to help her.

 Quietly, so as not to cause any noise, he crept up to the girl, then suddenly jumped up and clamped her mouth. Her cries were not needed, and there was no time to explain. The girl looked at him with eyes widened in fright as she tried to tear off his huge hands from her face and neck.

 “Don’t shout!” he whispered harshly, trying to reach her. “You're coming with me, and you shall not twitch. I want to help you. Do you understand? I won’t let anybody hurt you again,” he said, hoping that the girl would understand his speech.

 Belle calmed down and gazed at him with curiosity and confusion rather than fear. She dropped her hands and nodded.

 Gaston was delighted with rapidly occurring understanding, and, ducking quickly, went back to the fence, where his horse was. Belle stumbled, barely keeping up with him. Gaston climbed into the saddle of his black horse, a reason of his utmost pride, and seated the woman behind him.

 Belle looked longingly at the house with a thatched roof. But the nice and polite young man promised to help her, and she could not refuse.

  

***

 “Papa! Belle’s gone!”

 Rumpelstiltskin emerged from slumber, sitting in the shade of a wide-branched maple. His son was running to him with all his speed, waving his hands and shouting. He rubbed his eyes with his hands, trying to focus. Where would she go?

 “Wait, Bae, calm down and tell me all about it. What do you mean gone?”

 “Just gone!” the boy threw up his hands into the air. “I just went to feed the chickens and then came back - and she wasn’t there! Not in the house, or in the yard, or in the barn, or anywhere around!” tears rolled down Bae’s face – he’d lost her!

 Rumpelstiltskin felt the ground slipping from under his feet. _It’s your own fault, fool!_ he thought desperately, blaming himself. All because he wasn’t careful yesterday, he could not resist his own will, and frightened the girl, and now she has run away again. But he had already cursed himself a hundred times for such a rash act. But he had relived the moment when she lifted his face as if she was going to kiss him even more times than that, every time the memory made his knees weak.

 With a heavy heart, he drove the sheep back. He will search everywhere to find her, but this time could not get as lucky as the last one.

 

 ***

 

 Gaston and Belle sat opposite each other at his dining table. Between them stood a bowl of stew with peas, pumpkin and beef. Gaston pushed her plate towards her.

 “Eat.”

 Belle pushed the dish back.

 “I will not.”

 Gaston gritted his teeth.

 “I repeat - eat!”

 The bowl creaked on the table surface as Belle pushed it back.

 “Once again - I will not.” Belle said sternly.

 Gaston jumped up, unable to sit still. This girl was driving him insane.

 “But why?” he cried. He couldn’t understand why she was refusing a plate with a tasty dinner, the one he’d stuffed his stomach with gladly.

 Belle just smiled. In the early days Rumpelstiltskin and Bae patiently offered her meager meal options, hoping to feed her, and after many attempts, found out that she would not eat anything round or orange. Now she could even have picked tasty beef out of the stew, but too many peas and pumpkin frightened her, and not so hungry she felt. She continued to wait patiently for the young man to help her, as promised, but how on earth he was going to do that she had not a single idea.

 Gaston was agonizing for several hours trying to feed her, to change the bandage, from which she steadfastly refused, and, most importantly, to take her to the city. She flatly refused to go there.

 “Why don’t you want to go? You understand that only the mayor can give permission for a divorce?”

 “Divorce?” the puzzled girl asked again. “Why should I be given it?”

 Gaston sat down wearily. Better to explain everything first, he decided, and she will understand his plan.

 “Tell me ...” he hesitated. “You ... hmm ... confirmed the marriage? Consummated?” he recalled a complicated word correctly.

 Belle arched an eyebrow. She had a lot of books in her library in childhood, and almost all of them were read and remembered thoroughly by her, but about “consummated” a there was nothing there. Gaston, seeing the girl’s confusion decided to approach it from the other side, and blushed even more.

 “Well, do you and Rump…whatever…sleep?”

 “Of course.” Belle decided that this guy was not as smart as she thought. And, instead of helping her, he was asking some stupid questions.

 “Well, I mean .... Together? As a couple?” Gaston blushed like a tomato. But he had to know. He knew that a divorce is possible only if the marriage was not legally completed, and it was done in a very specific way.

 “No,” said Belle after consideration. With them there was always the boy.  “All three of us sleep together.”

 “Ooh ... Well ...” Gaston raked his fingers through his hair. “Do you share the bed?”

 “No, we share two beds. Two mattresses, in fact. We join the two of them together and then, and on the top ...” Belle went on to explaining their berth construction, and then the rest of the house things, marveling at his ignorance of the simplest furniture arrangement.

 Gaston groaned. Half a day had already passed and he could get her to nothing. He started to become brutalized, and gulps of strong grain tincture, for which he occasionally absented himself to calm his nerves, did nothing to help his irritation. The girl was as dumb as a doornail, and he began to understand the motives of her husband. He struggled to help her release from the hateful marriage, but that lapwing did not want to facilitate. He was away for another sip and returned already swinging on his feet and continued in a hoarse and almost growling voice:

 “Once again I’m asking ...”

 

 ***

 

Rumpelstiltskin stood before the gates of the newly constructed house of Martha and Gaston. He spent half the morning, looking for Belle in the woods, but he felt that it would not lead to anything. He returned to the house and, fortunately, noticed her handkerchief lying in a distance on the ground, in the direction of the village. He speeded to the houses, knocked on every door, asked the villagers, and finally one of them showed him the way to an unknown girl that rode in a white sundress with black stitching behind the dark-haired guy, the son of a farmer.

 He didn’t dare to enter the gate. The fact that Belle voluntarily left with broad-shouldered handsome man, could only mean one thing - she really ran away from him, but this time for real. He was ready to turn around and let her go, filled with bitter resentment, drowning out any word of reason. He had not even remembered that Gaston already had a wife.

 Rumpelstiltskin already turned and was about to leave, but suddenly heard a loud cry from the depths of the house. It was Belle’s voice. Forgetting all the hurt and reasoning, he ran, stumbling, into the house. The scene before his eyes dissipated all of his theory of Belle’s voluntary escape on the vine. She curled on the couch, pulling and turning herself away from an angry face of Gaston, bending over her, shaking her shoulders and growling something unintelligible.

 The room swam before Rumplestinkin’s eyes, overflowed with anger and a strange growing excitement, but he was on his feet in a moment and grabbed his staff with both hands, turning it into a weapon. He had to protect what belonged to him.

 “Let her go!” he shouted. With shame he realized that his voice sounded more like a squeal.

 Gaston turned to the open door. He didn’t need more signs to throw his fists at the newcomer. Rumpelstiltskin met him with a blow of his staff, with all of the applied force. As inspired as he was, his effort was miserably clumsy and slowed down Gaston’s fist just a little before it crashed into his jaw. Unable to stay on his feet, with darkening consciousness Rumpelstiltskin fell to the floor, losing his staff, and dragging Gaston with him.

 He blacked out for a few seconds, only to wake up and see the big furious man, on top of him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and holding up a fist for the next blow, certainly powerful enough to break through his skull. This undoubtedly would have happened if it was not for his staff in Belle’s hands, suddenly, with a loud roar, falling on the head of Gaston. The defeated opponent only managed to raise his hands to protect himself.

 He turned around, distracted by an unexpected attack from behind. Belle stood behind him, clutching a staff in her trembling hands. She ran to him and started to drag Gaston’s shirt sleeves from Rumpelstiltskin lying on the floor. Shoving Gaston, finally, to the side, she fell to her knees beside her stunned savior and threw her hands around him,  protecting from a possible attack.

 Gaston looked dumbfounded at the scene, rage boiled in his murky consciousness like a kettle on the fire. He jumped to his feet.

 “You .... Both ...” he struggled to express all he thought about these two people who laughed at his most noble intentions. It seemed that this girl didn’t need help, she was just fooling him!

 

  

Rumpelstiltskin swayed from side to side on the way home, and his head throbbed and buzzed like a ripe melon, but a feeling of pride, as if from nowhere, overwhelmed him. Belle was walking beside him, trying to prop him up against her, when he kept struggled to keep a straight line. Not more than a little time ago he would rather beg on his knees and grovel before the abuser, but today he tried to stand up for himself and his family. Belle seemed to pull out the daylight the side of his which he had never seen.

 “Rumpelstiltskin, I want to ask you a question.” Belle thoughtfully looked forward, walking beside him.

 “Yes, Belle?”

 “What is that “consummation”?”

 Rumpelstiltskin stumbled and bent down, pretending to lace his boots, stooping low, so that she wouldn’t see him thrown into the heat of embarrassment.

 


	12. Solstice Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to dear lizzietothet who catches my mistakes and helps me!  
> And thank you very much to all the readers, who leave comments! They are amazingly appreciated!

Dorothy burst out laughing, sitting at the table in Rumpelstiltskin’s house.

 She came to inspect the injury and saw Belle, as pale as death, the house owner, who tried to fasten the kettle on the hook over the fire for the third time, and each time missing. The healer sent him to bed and forced to tell what happened, incidentally changing the bandage on the girl’s hand.

 Rumpelstiltskin started telling the story, already anticipating Dorothy to give him an earful for a fight with her son-in-law. Belle smiled, frowning when the burning solution touched the wound and addind some vital details that, in her opinion, Rumpelstiltskin missed out. Bae sat next to his father and listened about their adventures like spellbound, imagining Belle to be a princess trapped in the hands of treacherous villain, and his father - a brave hero, fighting with a huge sword and in shining armor.

 “Oh ... oh what a bonehead!” Dorothy laughed, bending double. “And I was wondering why he had been so persistent to know about Belle?  That's what he was up to, as it turned out! Stealing from the evil husband, what a joke! Quite a bashing he’s going to get, I tell you, as soon as I see him, and I won’t mind me being half his size!”

 Rumpelstiltskin hesitantly smiled in response to the neighbor’s reaction. He was expecting a more severe reaction to his quarrel with Gaston. Nevertheless, he could not feel relief flushing through him.

 Dorothy diagnosed a mild concussion and strictly ordered a week’s bed rest for the master and for Bae and Belle to take over all his duties. When Rumpelstiltskin was sure that the healer had left, he sat down at the spinning wheel. He had never lain on the bed in idleness, and this time was no exception. He shook away the black dots dancing in his eyes, and went back to work.

  

 

The next night Gaston appeared. He came up to the house noisily, grunted loudly, cleared his throat and knocked. Belle came to the door.

 “Who's there?”

 “It’s  ... hmm ... Gaston. I ... uh ... need to talk.”

 Rumpelstiltskin stood up, leaning on a wheel; tripped because the wheels tend to spin, overturned a basket of wool, but settled still on his feet, gripping the staff. He was determined to fight back against this human-shaped bear. And he will do so when the room stops spinning. He nodded to Belle.

 Gaston entered the room. He looked far not as intimidating as yesterday. After yesterday's overdose with tincture he didn’t get out of bed for half a day, and he had to explain to Martha why exactly did they have an unfamiliar shawl beyond doubt belonging to a woman. He received a remarkably unkind earful from his wife, and half-day begged for her forgiveness. It was when their house was invaded by a no less fierce mother-in-law, he realized what he was in trouble. Dorothy didn’t spare him a slap or two, lucidly explaining that you mustn’t go into an unknown family dictating your rules.

 Now he hovered in the doorway, crushing the strap of his bag in his hands, not daring to enter. Awkward silence was broken by the master.

 “Why did you come?”

 Gaston dropped his eyes and murmured

 “I.. I came to apologize ...”

 Rumpelstiltskin decided that he already had sounds raving. Perhaps he should have listened to Dorothy’s orders.

 “Good.” Belle answered for him. “You came to apologize.”

 “Yeah ...” he said and suddenly bent double. Rumpelstiltskin didn’t immediately realize that it was a bow. Gaston stood up red as a lobster, and muttered

 “Forgive me, please.”

 “What?” the spinner leaned on the wheel again, dumbfounded, which again, oddly enough, made the turnover and made him stumble one more time and almost prostrate on the floor.

 Gaston stared in amazement at the staggering Rumpelstiltskin, guiltily realizing that it was his doing.

 “Forgive me. I have done wrong. I am very guilty.”

 And there was silence again, Rumplestiltskin too mesmerized by the whole situation to gather his thoughts effectively.

 ”I forgive you, Sir Gaston. Would you like some tea?” the girl broke the silence. Belle curtsied and cocked her head in question.

 “Uh ... Thank you! But I'll probably go ... And it's for you.” he tossed his in Belle’s hands a rather big bag, which he was holding previously. “It’s for the Solstice Day. Happy holiday to you all.”

 Gaston stood still a moment, then abruptly turned around and popped out of the house on a warm June evening.

 Bae jumped to Belle impatiently trying to peek into the bag.

 “Wow!” he whistled, taking out a large pot filled to the brim with fresh beef, arrangedwith nettle leaves for longer storage, and a large bottle of wine.

 “Papa, can you imagine that? We are going to have the holiday dinner of the century! That is great!” marveled the boy.

 “A Good gift.” Belle agreed.

 Rumpelstiltskin could not find words to say, and looked at his family, bustling with miraculously emerged supplies and deciding what exactly to cook and how to persuade Dorothy to share some valuable spices for the meat. Really, he thought dumbfounded; it was worth getting punched in the face.

 With the advent of Belle, an unprecedented number of strange events began to happen in his life, and he remembered his life before, such a quiet, calm, such a ... boring life. A life in which his heart was used to perform one single task - beating steadily and pushing blood through his veins. With this June, with this beauty, which appeared in his house, he felt that he was back to life; his heart was on fire anew. He woke up every day and it fluttered from the morning look of her blue eyes, from her affection, kindness, innocence and naivete. Even his son, Rumplestiltskin seemed to love him even more, seeing him happier day by day, smiling and shining around Belle. She radiated joy.

 He knew. It was yesterday that he realized that, heading into a battle with Gaston, he didn’t just protect a girl, he defended his love. He had never felt so ... strange. He blissfully listened to her every little laugh, every touch, knowing soberly that for her he was just a kind peasant that sheltered her, mistakenly bound with her by the church. But Rumpelstiltskin knew he would be happy just existing near this beautiful fairy who was kind to him. If it needed to be, all his life he would protect her from the world, which was constantly sought to hurt her, asking nothing in return.

  

 

This feast of Solstice promised to be quite unusual. Usually they carried through it just like any other day, except for a small fire in front of house, traditionally lighted in each family.

 Today, getting out of a dark room on a sunny day, he struggled to recognize his home. Belle, together with the boy dragged huge piles of green branches and were hanging them around the house: fern - on the fence; birch - on the gate; oak - at the door, as symbols of the healing power of nature. Above the windows were hung bunches of tutsan.

 Yesterday, as usual before each festival, they heard kids knocking at the door. They gathered wood for the fire giant, traditionally kindled in the center square of the village. “Firewood for the feast! Are you coming?” they demanded in front of each house. Typically, he sent them off, shaking his head, saying no, they wouldn’t go. Yesterday he opened the door to the children, and two of his favorite people in creation were hugging his back and looking at him imploringly. "We’re coming." Rumpelstiltskin only managed to say and Bay, squealing happily, disappeared and came back in a second, carrying a small bundle of firewood, which he prepared every year in hope that his father would agree. Children lay the bundle down and drove on with whooping.

 He was not a bit sorry for the precious wood, seeing the jubilation of his family.

 Whilst the girl and the boy decorated the house, Rumpelstiltskin slipped past them with the utmost dexterity, and hoping that go unnoticed, went into the woods. А few days ago, when he was looking for Belle, he saw a gorgeous briar bush in the forest near the lake, but not with small pinkish flowers, but with large, multi-layered, fragrant, almost rose-like ones. He was choosing deliberately the best, the most beautiful flowers, standing in front of a bush, and when the bouquet was ready, the sun was beginning to set down. Today was the longest day of the year and the shortest night, so the sunset was waning fast, and he must hurry.

 He met Belle at the doorstep.

 “This is for you, my dear Belle,” he smiled shyly as he handed her the flowers, hidden behind his back.

 The girl carefully picked up the bouquet, and looked at the flowers, as though it was a miracle.

 “Thank you, Rumpelstiltskin,” she said, and touched his face, pushing aside his hair, curtaining his face. He closed his eyes, his lips twitched.

 “Come on now, let’s go.”

 

 In the center of the village a huge fire burned, almost reaching the skies, created from wood, which was donated by each family. Today it will burn all night long. Along the edges of the square stood benches carried out of the nearby houses. The villagers brought their wine, ale and mugs. Minstrels, sitting on barrels, were skillfully writing sounds of an intricate melody with wooden flute, drum, tambourine, lute and bagpipes.

 Sparks rose high into the starry sky that night, short and sweet, filled with marvelous scents of flowers, blooming in the fields, which adorned everything - tables, houses, women with their hair loose, the loose hair of his beautiful Belle. She wove her wreath along the way here from the wonderful flowers of red rose-like briar, which he gave her. The remaining flowers she gathered in a small bouquet, which she held tight.

 They sat on a bench, listening to the meandering flute trills, looking at flying feet, arms and heads in the free dance, praising the mighty sun and the gift of life given to people and nature. They brought wine, donated by Gaston, and sipped it from wooden mugs taken from the house. Bay had fun with his friends, galloping through a small fire, kindled specifically for children. Tonight everything was allowed.

 Rumpelstiltskin felt dizzy, whether from a recent injury, whether from spiced wine, nicely burning his throat, or the scent of flowers, tickling his face every time he turned to Belle, whether from her wet lips and sparkling eyes, enthusiastically watching the wild dancing.

 “Come on,” he said to her when flutist played a slow, afflated melody.

 He led her by the arm, through the mob, to the fire, now completely oblivious to the crowd of people and without feeling uncomfortable.

 “There is a legend, Belle,” he told her, his voice hoarse, almost directly into her ear, touching her hair with his lips, “That on this night the sun hears all our desires. It is bound to fulfill one, and you only need to whisper it to the flowers, and throw them into the fire. The ashes will rise straight up to the sky and tell your sacred wish to the gods.”

 Belle brought a small bouquet to her face and whispered her wish to it. Rumpelstiltskin tried not to eavesdrop, and didn’t hear anything but a fire cracking. The girl put his hand on top of hers, which was holding flower stems and together they threw roses in the fire. Flames engulfed them, sending sparkles into the air.

 Silence erupted and people applauded for the minstrels and someone brought them generous wine goblets. Rumpelstiltskin turned back, heading to their place on the bench.

 “And now - dancing again!” the lutenist announced, and drummer began counting an ancient rhythm of Morisk dance. People around picked up a simple rhythm of clapping, starting their dance.

 Belle turned to Rumpelstiltskin and her eyes lit up, even more drunk.

 “I want to dance! Dance with me!” without waiting for permission, she spun around, picked up her skirt, fluttering bare feet on the heated ground. Rumpelstiltskin could only stand still, gripping the walking stick, mentally cursing his lameness. The girl clapped her hands, jumped up and spun, eyes closed, hair flying in a cloud around her, tangled in a scarlet wreath on her head. Never leaving him alone, she touched him, running her hand over his face, chest, back, through his hair, pressing close to him and flying back again in her artful, soulful, passionate dance.

 Somewhere nearby Dorothy competed in dance steps with the same mustached guest from the wedding. Bae danced with the crowd, with Finley and the rest of the folk, clapping the rhythm away with hands and feet. Martha and Gaston flashed past them, nodding them with a smile, Martha not touching the earth in the strong hands of Gaston. Tonight, everything was allowed.

 Finally the dance was over, and part of the people, exhausted, sat down on the bench to catch their breaths. Belle, with a flushed face, followed Rumpelstiltskin. He felt that he, too, danced all night long - it seemed insanely hot and he was breathing heavily. They poured more wine into the mug and chugged, exhausted from thirst. Rumpelstiltskin seemed unable to see anything else apart from the girl next to him. Everything else turned into an unnecessary buzz.

 “Come on, Belle” he pulled her by the hand, and helping to get up this time laced her fingers with his. “I have to show you something.” His voice was hoarse and broke to a whisper.

 Belle obediently followed him away from the fire, from the unbridled dancing, from fires in the woods, to the lake. Muffled, distant sound of music could be heard even here.

 He stopped at the water, under a huge secular oak. In his village it was believed that the oak possessed magical powers.

 “Belle.” He turned to the girl and took both her hands in his. He felt dizzy and his knees were weak, but it was not wine that put the words into his mouth, that felt suddenly dry.

 “Yes, Rumpelstiltskin.” she answered, looking straight into his eyes with her blue ones, which reflected the full moon - their only witness at this moment.

 He folded his hands as if in a prayer, and put them into the hands of Belle, kneeling.

 “Belle.” he said almost in a whisper, but steady and determined, remembering the words of the ancient oath that never sounded in the churches. “You're the blood of my blood; you are the bone of my bone. I give you my flesh, so that the two would become one, I give you my soul, until life leaves us. You can not possess me, for I belong to myself, but as long as you wish, I shall give you that which is mine to give. You cannon command me, for I am a free person, but I shall serve you in those ways you require. I give you the first bite of my bread, the first sip of my wine. From this day only your name I will shout in the night, and your eyes I will smile to every morning. I'll be your shield as you'll be mine. Sacred is our union and no evil will not touch it. But above all this, I swear to protect you and honor in this life and the next.

I love you, Belle.”

 He closed his eyes for the last words, instantly regretting the amount of the wine that put all the words that were spinning in his head into his mouth. He did not expect anything in return. He stood before her, with his heart open, torn from his chest, laid on the altar in front of her.

 “My husband ...”

 She squeezed his hand in hers, sinking down onto her knees in front of him. Her lips pressed softly to his, thin and pale in the moonlight. His heart skipped a beat. He froze for a moment, unable to believe that it happened. Belle released his hands and buried her fingers in his hair. He belatedly responded to the kiss, gently, feathery, touching her parted lips, so sweet, so desirable, holding back a groan breaking from his chest. He pulled her to him closer, his big rough palm on her small waist, the other hand cupped her face, continuing to kiss her, and enjoying her responsive caresses, inhaling the smell of her hair and the briar.

 That night, that short night of the solstice was the time when for centuries lovers gave each other the oath of eternal love, which was a crime to violate.

 

 


	13. In Close Quarters

Morning came down on earth later than usual. Vague light was timidly probing the ground through the gloomy, fat clouds, that were erupting torrents of water. Drops were beating loudly against the window sill and accumulated in a puddle under the window on the wooden boards. For today, the summer heat had given way to a moist coolness.

Rumpelstiltskin didn't perform his usual jump-out-of-bed in a rush. With weather like this there was no point in shepherding the sheep, today they'd do fine with hay. In addition, he had an affair much more important - he chuckled to himself - to say good morning to his family, peacefully sleeping next to him on the mattress. To his son, who yesterday had fun all night by the fire, going door to door asking for treats along with mischievous boys. The remaining traces of coal on his face he drew on himself were supposed to depict a terrible face to scare away evil spirits. To his Belle, yesterday so lovely, lively, clear as ever. Yesterday, intoxicated with wine and beauty of the girl, he uttered the ancient words of the sacred oath, binding the two of them, the oath, that lovers' lips pronounced in this mystical night for hundreds of years.

Rumpelstiltskin looked into himself, searching for the bitterness of regret for his action - but wasn't able to find it. In just a month of living with Belle he could not imagine ever living without her.

The stranger; odd, and frightening as she was, clad in rags and blood, who came into his house a month ago was nothing like this today's Belle, all the same strange, but smiling, shining, curious, never idle. Instead of a tangled mat of hair there were shiny wavy locks, instead of bruises and scratches - snow-white skin and a slightly rounded shape.

Leaning on his elbow Rumpelstiltskin admired her peaceful face, lit by the dim light of a gloomy sky. He touched her forehead, removing a strand of hair from her face. Yesterday she kissed him, as if there was nobody more important than him in the whole world, but did it mean anything? She has always disregarded the rules of behavior and expressed her emotions rather with touch, not words. So what was it? A gesture of friendship, appreciation or ...?

Belle opened her eyes, disturbed by his hand, threw her arms around his neck and drew him to her, loudly and happily smacking him on the lips. She paused for a moment, then smiled brightly and turned to Bae.

"Get up, Sparrow! Our sheep are already hungry!" She exclaimed. The boy fought Belle's tugging sleepily and asked for another minute, please.

Rumpelstiltskin washed his face with fresh rain water that filled the bowl on the windowsill and started breakfast. Today they were eating the juicy, fragrant beef, that was left from yesterday's feast, with the cheapest acorn dark bread and beans in a bowl - each cut in half on Belle's plate. He gloomily surveyed the remaining stocks in the pantry - a cheap bag of oats, a few turnips, beans, and some cheese ripening. That was all they had left. There was nothing to sell on the next market day. Wool from spring shearing was over, and the shorn sheep would ruffle again only by August. A few lonely coins rolled in the purse, and didn't promise much help. Bread would cost too much in July. Every household had run out of their Spring stocks, just like the Rumplestiltskin's, and new crops will only be harvested in a month. July was coming – the Hungry Six Weeks.

Belle with the boy ran into the house, hiding under a cloak. Rain was dripping on the floor from their wet hair.

"Papa, an ewe has had a lamb!" the boy shouted excitedly. Rumpelstiltskin fetched his staff and hurried back with them right away.

Usually sheep brought lambs before the winter, but it did happen sometimes. Eight sheep were standing in the paddock, and one was lying in a corner and licking the newborn lamb clean. Rumpelstiltskin hastened to take two shields hammered together from planks to isolate the mother with a baby rom the rest of the herd. Each lamb was their joy - the only ram in the herd was already quite old, and their flock was rarely updated with new curly creatures.

The newborn had already found the udder and was suckling milk, smacking his lips. Belle together with Baefire bent over discussing the baby.

\- Look, he opened his eyes!

\- He's so cute!

\- He's trying to stand up!

"Children", mused Rumpelstiltskin. He admired the two excited figures as they admired the lamb. Having arranged hay and water next to the newly-minted family, he almost had to pull both of them by their ears, urging to leave the beasts alone.

Having enjoyed a delicious breakfast, the inmates began their daily business. Belle started a laundry and rubbed linen on a ribbed board in soapy water, blowing falling hair off her face. Before that, she had to strip down to her shift and denude the men folk from their clothes. Rumpelstiltskin thanked the heavens that they had a second shift, otherwise they would stay naked waiting until the laundry dries, as was often the case with him and his son in the early years.

Bae slipped away to peek at the lamb, and Rumpelstiltskin began to drive pegs between the logs in the walls to stretch the rope for drying clothes. Usually laundry dried in the yard, but he did not want to tell Belle about her mistake.

Suddenly, from somewhere above there was a crack, and a piece of straw roof fell to the floor spraying water in all directions. Rain poured from the edges of the hole on the roof.

"Ah, the devil!" In frustration Rumpelstiltskin threw away the string which he tied to a peg, and hurried to the shed for tightly bound bales of straw stacked in a corner.

With his burden he hurried to a wooden ladder, still leaned to the roof after the last repair in March. Leaving the staff downstairs, he climbed the stairs with a sheaf in one hand, overcoming one stair at a time. The rain shrouded his eyes, and he was already soaked through to the bone. Carefully he lowered himself onto the roof, so as not to disturb the rest of the coverage, then moved up to the hole and began fixing the roof, re-laying and tying up sheaves.

When he entered the house, Belle wiped what was left from the puddle on the floor. Seeing Rumpelstiltskin, she gasped and ran to him.

"Why are you not wearing a raincoat? You're soaking wet and dripping!"

"That's fine, I'll dry off ..." he answered, but Belle dragged him closer to the fire, urging him to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Take off your shirt and breeches," she ordered.

"Uh ... why?" came an embarrassed answer.

"You're cold! My older brother once got so sick after he came home wet. Fever had not subsided for three days!" the girl begrudged, incidentally pulling off his shirt.

"Fine... Wait, Belle, I'll do the breeches myself, can you give me a blanket, please?»

While she turned away, he frantically pulled off his boots and breeches, and was immediately covered an old woolen blanket.

"That's better, isn't it?" Belle hugged him from behind, encircling his arms with a blanket.

"Of course, my dear Belle, but would you be so kind as to free my head out of the blanket captivity? Or I'll decide that you kidnapped me," he laughed.

Belle thoroughly rubbed his wet hair before pulling the blanket lower and leaned her chin on his shoulder, renewing her blankety embrace.

"Thank you, Belle. For caring about me," said Rumpelstiltskin in a low voice trying to see her face behind him. -

"I don't want anything bad happening to you," she said in a soft voice. She buried her face in his neck and left long, thoughtful kiss.

In the evening the dinner, now consisting of simple porridge was eaten, tea drunk, the table wiped. Rumpelstiltskin was sewing by a candle, shortening a new tunic for Belle - dull blue, old, with a frayed hem, and at the same time extending his son's shirt, which he had already overgrown. The girl and the boy were sitting by the fire in their shifts. They were reading aloud the book that was back in the house after all its adventures. Rumpelstiltskin rejoiced his son's progress, and even more glad he was to hear the voice of a girl, melodiously reading fairy tales.

"Belle, can you help me with a lesson?" asked Bae.

"Of course. What should we do?" she closed the book, ready to listen.

"Dictates my some word, and I will write them on the board, and then you'll check it," Bae pulled out of the bag a board, waxed, and a sharp stick to draw the letters.

"Good," nodded the girl. "Let's start with ... Papa? "

"Come on, it's too easy. Give something a little more complicated! With more letters!"

"Well, then, hold on!" she smiled and flipped a couple of pages, looking for a longer word. "Invention".

"Erm ...here it is. Is it right?" Bae showed the wax tablet to the girl.

"Oh, no, you wrote inv-a-ntion. There's an "e" in the middle. Correct and remember. Next one... adventure."

Rumplestilskin, minding his own business, thought that it had been too long since he felt so good and happy in his own house. The flames crackled in the hearth, the rain outside the window didn't stop roaring, Belle and Baefire filled the room space with their voices, all immersed in the lesson, while not forgetting about the head of the family sitting at the window with his sewing. The son would slyly ask for a hint with a complex word, the girl would smile and run up to him to take a look at his work.

"The next word ... heiress."

Something clicked in Rumplestiltskin's head.

"Belle,' he called her, "do you ... Do you remember your family?" he approached carefully, thinking how to get past the terrible topic of that tragedy that happened to her. But he still could not understand something.

"Yes, of course, "she answered, without looking up from the book.

"Your family were rich, weren't they? "

"Yes. My dad was very smart, he had many forges, which he commanded, barns of metal, a lot of workers. "

"And your family ... Who else but you were left?"

"Nobody," the quiet voice replied.

"So how did it happen that you ended up on the street? You've had to become the sole heir of the family. And until you come of age, you needed to have a custodian who would look out for you and your inheritance," mused Rumpelstiltskin.

"I don't know. I lived in a shelter, I remember that. Then I was kicked out of it. Even if I had some kind of inheritance, it is no more," the girl shook her head.

For some time the silence was broken only by the sound of rain.

"Did I write that right?" Bae handed a plate to his lovely tutor.

"Yeah," nodded Belle without looking, lost in her thoughts.

Rumpelstiltskin regretted that forced her to think about the past, and now she was definitely upset. From that moment, he decided to never remind her of it. 


	14. The Challenge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope there’s somebody still with me on that story, and it’s not just me and lizzietothet, who helps me to catch my mistakes. Any comments are greatly appreciated!

A nice warm fire was dancing in the depth of Dorothy’s small kitchen, making all shadows soft and deep, and air thick with unspoken anticipation together with that cozy afternoon idleness, that makes a man think of matters far greater than himself.

“Honey, I got thebook that you asked for. Why do you even need it?”

“Thank you, Dorothy,” Belle took the book from her, heavy, in hardcover, upholstered in leather.“I need to look one thing up.” And she sat down in a chair, absorbed in reading.

“Oh, what a smart lass she turned out to be, Rumple,”the healer turned to the man sitting next to her. “Look who’s reading a book and talking so nice. The little boy of yours chirps all about her.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded, smiling. He nibbled on a piece of sweet biscuit with tea, waiting for Bae and Finley to finish with their arithmetics. Today they solved problems, and had to "build" a barn, by calculating how muchwood, hay, nails will be spent on the construction considering a given square.

Hungry July had even hit Dorothy, whose prosperity depended little on the harvest, and instead of soft buns on her table were last year's biscuits with raisins. And yet, the spinner’s pantry could not boast of anything more than half a sack of oats. Rumpelstiltskin knew that it was barely enough for them for one week, and had high hopes for Bae’s little garden and his livestock.Onion, radish and cabbage would soon be ripe, and there was still cheese from the sheep and eggs from the three chickens.

"You two, getting along?" Dorothy asked a tad quieter, looking at the girl curled up in a chair with a book. 

“Yes, we do, Dorothy.” Rumpelstiltskin smiled sheepishly and hid behind a cup of tea.

“Oh I see, I see… my old chap, he's all joy and happiness, smiling like a doodle when no one sees... Ha, when where you happy last time, who can tell? Even before Milah went you-know-what, I can’t remember you so shining like a clean pot.Ah, I remember the time, when me and Glenn, my husband, were just as happy. Especially after the wedding. Oh how we loved each other! Thank god, he left me something to remember him for, my son and two daughters ... "

Dorothy fell silent, watching Finley with love in her eyes.Her kind, mischievous little boy with the same blond curly hair, like her mother’s, was now calculating how many goats would fit in the barn.

“So how long would you make your son wait for a little brother, eh?”Dorothy screwed her eyes and poked her shy neighbour's side.

Rumpelstiltskin choked on his tea.

"Why?" Dorothy threw up her hands in the air, "Bae is a big boy, he's eleven this autumn. He'll be a handy lad, a good worker for you. And he'll be so happy to have a little bro or a nice sis! Eh, he's into your family trade already, isn't he?

“No.” He answered, averting his eyes.

"Why by God's grace?You, yourself learned it from your aunts when you were twice as small."

“I ... I don’t want Bae to grow up like me. He wants to become a knight to save the princess, to do good deeds,” Rumpelstiltskin said quietly, looking at Baeover the edge of his cup. “And what I can teach him?” He looked questioningly at the wise woman.“What? Women's craft, which no man oughtto be engaged into? Or maybe a way to cowardly escape from the battle, refusing to defend his land?” Rumpelstiltskin’s voice sounded harsh and bitter.His pale fingers gripped the clay cup’s sides.

“And what he'd become then, eh?”

“He would go into the city. He would be serving some rich family, and live in comfort. And then, perhaps, he mightbecome a squire.” Rumpelstiltskin looked at the boy yearningly. “But not now. Later, when he is older.”

 

Belle slowly walked home, thoughtfully looking forward. Rumpelstiltskin occasionally stopped and waited for the girl lagging behind. With indecision he peered into her face.

“What made you so thoughtful, Belle? Something interesting you read in the book?”

The girl did not answer immediately, continuing her way along the path, lost in thought.

“... I remember. I’m starting to remember.  All that happened in the past eight years.”She said softly. “I have never thought about what was going on around me. At first I didn’t want to notice anything when I was in the orphanage. I remembered tales, stories from my books, and was coming up with new, and they all lived in my head. They were beautiful and I was happy there. Outside was darkness and grief, and I didn’t want to go back there. Then, when I wasliving on my own, I thought it would be better without the whips and yelps of a matron. But people treated me just the same, still beat me with words or stones, turned away from me. I didn’t want to see the world outside, so I locked myself inside.

Rumpelstiltskin had no idea of how to erase her memory of the past, her tragedy, vicious people, which made her hide inside her own mind. He took her hand and raised it to his lips to place a caring kiss, trying to express all of his compassion and tenderness to this brave girl - it was the least thing he could do.

Belle looked up at the man and smiled.

“Now the times when I need to hide happen less and less often. I like to live here and now, in this house with you and Bae. I feel safe and ... happy.”

Rumpelstiltskin was touched by her words, her frankness. All that thishapless girl needed was a little patience, kindness, understanding, and for so many years no one was able to give it to her. At the same time he felt a surge of pride for his boy. He was the first person that had decided to help aderangedshagrag, who he met on the street.And then every day when Rumpelstiltskin left to graze sheep he didn’t stop talking to her, helping her, teaching her of human warmth. He may have had something to do with her recovery, he admitted after a moment’s thought.

“But I'm starting to remember,” the girl continued.“You asked me about my heritage. I started thinking about it,so I asked Dorothy for a book about laws of our land. Since her son-in-law works in a town board, he has the book.”

Rumpelstiltskin was troubled to hear about the husband of Bertha. The girl didn’t know or remember that it was him who she owed her new family too. No matter how much evil that clerks wished to him, all his efforts crumbled, he thought, grinning.

“In that book it is written that ... if the heir is underage, a guardian is appointed by a judge, and he manages the money and takes care of the child until it shall becomefourteen and he comes of age. If the heir is female, the guardian continues his duties until she marries, then bequeathed goes to the spouse,” she clearly recited a passage from the book almost verbatim.

Rumpelstiltskin laughed.“Well, then it appears now we are rich! We’ll have to move our beds out so that all the bags of gold would fit in the house,” he reasoned with mock concern.

“Rumpelstiltskin, I'm not kidding.”

“Belle, darling, but haven’t you said it yourself that there's nothing left? Otherwise, you would not live in a shelter.”

“Who of us is regarded foolish, you or me?”she looked reproachfully at Rumpelstiltskin. “Evenif there was nothin left of the mansion, but all the savings of my father, his gold, his forges, goods, all that remained intact. He was the richest man in these lands! I'll go into town and find it out in the town board, who was appointed as my guardian and why I ended up in a shelter.

“Belle, don’t go...” Rumpelstiltskin raised his eyebrows imploringly. “No one wouldlisten to us, the poor, and in the end we'll end in prison, listen to me.” His words were soaked with the experience of living in the fear of those who had the power, fear to draw their attention, because it had always promised only one thing - trouble.

Belle stopped dead.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” she took his face in her hands, looking straight into his eyes. “I should decide my own fate myself, and I must be brave. They will listen to me and give the answer, that's all I want. But there will be… people, and again returning to the town...”She bit her lip. “That's why I need you. I can’t do it on my own.”

Rumpelstiltskin swallowed a tight knot in his his throat. She wanted him to come along with her, or rather, remembering her fear of strangers, _instead_ of her in front of the judge. In front of people endowed with power to do anything they wish to.

“Why me, Belle? I’m not fit for this”.

“Because you're bold and brave, and I know you will protect me, as you did when you defended me from the children in the town, from the crowd, from silly Gaston. You're my friend and my husband, I want you to be there with me.”

Rumpelstiltskin studied her face doubtfully. The girl was unawareof his reputation of a deserter, a coward, for her he was a noble defender. Lether be the only one person in the world who had faith in him, but Belle trust was somehow more important to him than all the other people in the world.

“Fine, Belle, I'll go with you”, he blurted out, without waiting for the doubts to raise their heads. “Do not fear anything”.

“Excellent! Tomorrow?” Belle smiled, glad to hear her protector’s consent.

“Tomorrow it shall be”, nodded Rumpelstiltskin lightly, but he went further with a heavy heart. Something told him no good will come of this idea.

 

The next morning Belle woke up bothered, and just as before hardly uttered two words during the entire breakfast, but was determined to go to the city. Horrified, Rumpelstiltskin watched the sun rising higher and higher above the horizon.Time was approaching when he would have to stand up for the two of them before a judge.

He collected the bag at a loss, not knowing what he would need. Just in case he picked up the purse with the money, although he doubt that a couple of coppers will go at least for a promise of a bribe. He also added a few crackers, borrowed from Dorothy, and a flask of water. On a second thoughthe put on his cloak. Though it was too hot in the middle of  summer, itadded him a little in size and importance. Or at least he hoped so.

Belle chose a newly mended gray-blue tunic with a white shirt and reluctantly hid her hair under a cap, as Rumpelstiltskin instructed. She was supposed to look at least somewhat like a rich heiress, and not likea wife of a poor spinner.

Baewas trying to persuade his father to allow him to go with them, but Rumpelstiltskin forbaede it at once.He told him to herd sheep before lunch and in the evening, if they don’t come back, go sleep atDorothy’s.

Belle went all the way clinging to the man's arm and would not let go of him even before the massive door of  the city hall.

“Belle”, Rumpelstiltskin turned to the girl and grabbed her shoulders gently.“Do you really want it? We can now turn around and go back, and continue to live out quiet life. Why do you need all this commotion?”

Belle looked up biting her lower lip in frustration.

“I need to know what happened then. This is important. Please.”

Rumpelstiltskin looked into her eyes full of pleading, and he knew he couldn’t refuse. He took her face in his hands and touched his lips to her forehead, gathering his strength, then turned and slammed a massive knocker in the intimidating, high door. A moment later, a viewing window opened and a bearded face of a guardappeared, sleepy at such an early hour for the town life.

“Who are and what do you need?” he growled out.

“Rumpelstiltskin, the spinner from North village and my wife Belle”,he introduced himself, straightening up and trying to look taller.

“To whom and on what”, asked the guardian an attendant question, considering the woman that remotely reminded him of someone.

“To the judge, on a matter of my wife”, answered Rumpelstiltskin quickly, the rehearsed answers easily slipped off the tongue. If only it was all so simple.

“Come in”,the guard opened the door, letting them inside. "All these little women, they can’t get enough",said a discontent muttering of thebearded man.  He waved a hando toward a carved oak door whick they should enter.

Firmly squeezing her hand, Rumpelstiltskin knocked. "Come in," was heard from the other side. He opened the door with some difficulty, holding a staff in one hand and a Belle’s gand in the other, and walked into the room, hastily pulling up the girl inside.

“Stop standing there like sheep in a meadow.Come and speak your matters.”

Blinded by the bright light of the sun from anopposite window, Rumpelstiltskin led Belle toward the voice, stepping carefully onto the soft, expensive carpets. Few dare to apply in person to a judge, usually the questions were discussed with a streets elder or a village headman, chosen from among the people, and the latter headed to the judge, who decidedwhether to take them in or not.

The spinner stopped in front of a large table, set on a podium, littered with books.Heaven, dozens of books! Instantly he bent into a bow, hoping that Bell repeated his gesture, but a moment later realized that she did neither such thing and remained standing.

“Excuse me, sir, I ...”he looked up and froze, not completely upright. In front of him, half-hidden begind the heavy volumes, sat the judge, lean, stooped, balding gray on the temples, and next to him... Rumpelstiltskin felt his palms were suddenly damp with sweat. Right in front of him, next to the judge, smirked Albert, the husband of Bertha.


End file.
